How to get Fedora2 to detect my NTFS hard disk
 

I really don't know what to do,
I want to move my windows NTFS hard disk to my linux computer so i can get the data off of it and put it on the linux hard disk.

I installed the NTFS driver, but that didn't work.
when the computer starts up it recognized the drive, but when i check for the drive in the terminal it just doesn't show up!

The same thing happened when i installed this hard drive (250GB Western Digital SATA) on my windows computer, but i just installed the drivers from the site and it worked fine.

Problem is there are NO drivers for this hard drive for linux! i am completely lost.

Anyone here have any idea what i should do? it would be greatly appreciated.

Details of driver and my system:
Main hard disk:
200GB western digital IDE (this one works fine)
Hard disk i can't mount:
250GB SATA western digital
1.6GB processor
I run Fedora 2

if any more information that you need to help me just ask.

Thx in advance

You'll need to create a mount point for the new drive by doing `mkdir /mnt/ntfs-drive`, then edit your /etc/fstab to tell the system what to do with the new drive. There's a decent explanation of what /etc/fstab is and does here.

If you would like to mount it temporarily try making a directory to mount it like said above then use "mount -t ntfs /dev/hda2 /mnt/ntfs-drive"

Of course replace the /dev/hda2 part with the appropriate device. For more info type "man mount" at the command line for the man pages.

K i would try what you guys have told me, but the only problem is that i don't know how to find the appropriate device!

"Of course replace the /dev/hda2 part with the appropriate device"
I actually don't know what my drive actually is! is there any comand i can type in to figure out what it is called?
Oh and don't fotget that the drive is SATA, i don't know if that has any effect or not.

thanks for the help guys.

If this is the only sata drive on your system and you only have one partition on it:

make a directory in /mnt like so: mkdir /mnt/sata-drive

then mount it like so: mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /mnt/sata-drive

of course you must do this as root or su


alternatively you can try to add a line to your fstab:

/dev/sda1 /mnt/sata-drive ntfs users,defaults 0 0


Then reprocess your fstab with: mount -a

I did the following:
I honistly don't know what to do anymore:
daan@localhost daan]$ su -
Password:
[root@localhost root]# mkdir /mnt/sata-drive
[root@localhost root]# mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /mnt/sata-drive
mount: /dev/sda1 is not a valid block device
[root@localhost root]#

thx for the help, i am honistly really apreciating it

any more idea's?

don't give up %-)
 

!!!try to understand the idea of /dev file system in general!!!
if /dev/sda1 is not a valid device then may be /dev/sda2 is valid %-)
if not - check /dev/sdb1 until you reach the corner of the world b:-)
also you may try the same with command cfdisk /dev/sda if not valid then
cfdisk /dev/sdb then
cfdisk /dev/sdc then
cfdisk /dev/sdd
cfdisk will show you the whole table of the device specified
then you'll know which to mount
and don't forget to have fun

in mandrake linux there is diskdrake utility i think DiskDruid may also help

the help is really appreciated.. i tried all of the ones you said...
sda1, sda2, sda3 then sdb1, sdb2, sdb3, then sdd1, and so on an on... i went to 6 for each of those!!!!!
i sware to god linux is starting to get on my nerves again!
gonna keep on trying but i am seeing no light at the end of the tunnel :(

THE strangest thing though!!!! when i start up the computer linux actually recognizes the damn drive! (when its searching for new hardware)
strangly enough it says serial ata 150 (it should be 250)
i am not sure what to do.

what i am going to try next is get my other SATA drive, the one thats only 120GB and see if it actually works with that one because the 250 gb drive was not detected by windows either... i had to install a driver for the system to recognize it. (can't really do that for linux though)

k again, any more idea's just tell me, i will post if the other SATA drive worked.

k even my other SATA drive didn't work!!!! i am completely lost now

hmpf, linux can make me so mad!
i feel like thowing the computer out the window hahaha

:'( anyone got any more idea's?

Have you installed the RPM for NTFS-support?

well i did, from sourceforge or something like that, but i am thinking that i installed it wrong :S i can't think of any other reason why it wouldn't work.

On that site they first tell you to find out which kernel you have.
so i did that and i know i need this file:
2.6.5-1.358 i686

i downloaded that and installed it

Now here is where it gets kind of strange:
I need to type
/sbin/modprobe ntfs
then dmesg | grep NTFS
if i don't do this the ntfs system doesn't show up when i type

cat / proc/filesystems

is this normal? how do i know that its actually reading it properly?

OH and yes one more thing,

when i type
/sbin/fdisk -l
only my IDE hard disk shows up! i can't even see the ntfs partion....

The thing is at first i thought this was because the hard disk needed drivers, but i actually pluged in my other SATA drive and that one didn't show up either!

one thing is for sure -don't throw your linux box out%-) lets play pretend you want to install linux on your sata drive unplug other drives and boot from installation CD it will do the dirty job 4 U and tell you the right device file for you drive. don't proseed the install proces just reboot
andother thing - check if your kernel supports NTFS and SATA - if not -compile your kernel

OH! i think i might know what the problem is.... maybe my kernel doesn't support sata! how can i check if it can support it or not?

I kinda gave up, i put the hard drive back in my windows machine (just for an hour) i want to watch a movie,...

i will try the acting like i am going to install linux on the SATA drive, but i want to check if the kernel can support sata first

switch the distro
 

last time i tried to mount NTFS to Fedora3 I found out that it's default kernel doesn't support NTFS that makes me think that fedora2 doesn't support it either any way you have to recompile your kernel or switch the distro - Mandrake doesn't have such problems

try this #lsmod | grep sata - but I'm not sure if it can help