New Seagate 1TB USB ext HDD stiffs Linux boot sequence but older 230MB ditto is fine
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New Seagate 1TB USB ext HDD stiffs Linux boot sequence but older 230MB ditto is fine
This machine is WinXP/Debian Lenny dual boot. My older Seagate ext HDD has a Linux partition and an NTFS one, and works fine under Linux.
I just bought a new 1 TB Seagate Free Agent ext USB drive to use solely as a store for photos. First I ran WinXP and let the new disk auto-install itself. Then I connected the older ext HDD and copied a couple of photo folders totalling 28GB from the NTFS partition of the old ext HDD to the new one. No problem at all.
I then restarted the machine in Linux and it didn't even get as far as grub. Switching off, removing the power to the new hdd and trying again got things running with the old ext HDD still attached. Plugging in the power for the new disc gives an error message 'cannot mount volume - invalid mount option when attempting to mount the volume 'Free Agent Drive''
I've almost certainly done something stupid but can't think what. Any help appreciated.
And here is the output from the three commands mentioned in the link you suggested:
antje@firefly:~$ id
uid=1000(antje) gid=1000(antje) groups=20(dialout),24(cdrom),25(floppy),29(audio),44(video),46(plugdev),110(netdev),115(powerdev),10 00(antje)
antje@firefly:~$ mount
/dev/hda3 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
procbususb on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/dev/sda1 on /media/disk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,shortname=lower,uid=1000)
/dev/sda2 on /media/disk-1 type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal)
mount: unknown filesystem type 'ntfs-3g'
firefly:/home/antje#
firefly:/home/antje# cd /media/new-ext-hdd
firefly:/media/new-ext-hdd# ls
firefly:/media/new-ext-hdd#
Incidentally, attempting to start the computer with the new hdd attached crashes the kernel.
FWIW, booting up with the new drive fails and crashes the kernel whether the old ext hdd is present or not.
After starting up without the new drive and then plugging it in, the freeagent drive appears to be present in the GUI's 'Computer' window although it refuses to mount. Checking the properties it comes up as Freeagent Drive, type desktop configuration file, size unknown, location computer:/// , Mime type application/x-desktop
Does this help at all?
Last edited by Richard Molton; 06-29-2009 at 03:37 PM.
Reason: extra info
Some more info: just in case there might be a fault in the new drive, I plugged it (and also the older drive) into MY computer (the one I have been referring to so far is the property of SWMBO). Mine is also dual boot Debian lenny/winxp (Pro, hers is home) and it worked straight away. The problem now is, do I keep the new big drive for myself or keep trying to make it work on her box?
Incidentally, on my machine the new drive is described as: Freeagent Drive, 931.5 GB,media=hard disk, UUID=D4B4F760B4F74410, fs= ntfs-3g(3.1), mount point /media/FreeAgent Drive, filesystem=fuseblk, mount options rw nosuid nodev user_id=0 group_id=0 allow_other blksize=4096
I'm not so sure that I know precisely what to include. Good job you left a question mark in your reply! In any case, I don't know if it is appropriate to use /etc/fstab (which I thought was for hard-wired devices like the fixed hdd in the computer) when trying to mount an unpluggable thing like an ext-usb-hdd
On my computer, with both ext-hdds up and running, /etc/fstab makes no reference to any devices other than the various partitions on the fixed hdd, or the CDrom.
If fstab is the thing to do, then what needs to be added?
PS with the new ext-hdd plugged in at boot time, the box in question never even gets as far as grub so I don't think it will read anything in /etc/fstab
Last edited by Richard Molton; 06-29-2009 at 06:41 PM.
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