Mounting fat32 partition... wierd error msg.
 

I'm setting up a partition to swap files from my windows partion to my redhat 9 partition, and I put it on my USB harddrive. its Harddrive b, partition two. I have it all set up, so I try to mount it. Log in as root, password, go to console: I type:
mount -t vfat /dev/hdb2 /mnt/win

and get:
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hdb2,
or too many mounted file systems
(could this be the IDE device where you in fact use
ide-scsi so that sr0 or sda or so is needed?)


I made /mnt/win... what did I do wrong? I only have one harddrive mounted, so I don't think it's too many filesystem types, and its Fat32, so vfat is right- right?

what does "fdisk -l /dev/hdb" tell you about the contents of the drive?

well the command is correct for mounting fat drives, but i think you should actually check if hdb2 is the proper one..

when I do fdisk, I get "command not found"

first its located in the /sbin folder so you would issue the command like this:
/sbin/fdisk -l /dev/hdb
secondly, you have to be root to issue that command

*smacks self in face* Ok, I'll try that when I get into linux.

I do that, and it just goes to the next line like I typed nothing.

[root@localhost sbin]# /sbin/fdisk -l /dev/hdb
[root@localhost sbin]#

are you typing capital i or l ?

not an i its an l, or you can look at it as a small L ;-)

ok, thats what I did. I tried it again, and got the same message. Maybe it doesn't like the USB harddrive?

What do you get from 'ls -l /dev/hdb'? (And also /dev/hdc and /dev/hdd if they are CD/DVD-ROMs.)

Also, post the contents of /etc/fstab and /etc/modules.conf.

how bout this d00d just type as root:
/sbin/fdisk -l
and thats it.
in the system column you will see something like Win95 or whatever it is....and whatever it does end up being, i am sure it'll trigger you off and tell you what device is your win partition when you look in the corresponding first column.

haven't tried those yet, but it occured to me: would hdb be my cdrom/cdrw? If so... *smacks self on forehead again*

ok look, thats up to you to know that
hda = primary master
hdb = primary slave
hdc = secondary master
hdd = secondary slave
now, 9 outta 10 times if you see someones computer their cdroms, burners, dvd's, whatever they use, are typically set up on hdc, hdd, i mean its still going to work even if its on hdb, but like i said most of the time its on secondary...
only you will know what it is on, and if worse comes to worse, and you have no idea, or even have no idea what i am saying, then go to the /var/lib folder and look at the file dmesg, just open it up with a text editor....
or even though you will get a bit of output you could type
cat /var/log/dmesg |grep hd*
it will be a smaller output than looking in the file itself
and for example mine says:

hda: WDC WD600BB-32CCB0, ATA DISK drive
hdb: Maxtor 2F020J0, ATA DISK drive
hdc: WDC WD800BB-00CAA0, ATA DISK drive
hdd: AOPEN CD-RW CRW2040, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive

so as you see hda, hdb, and hdc are harddisks and hdd is my burner..
so you will be able to find it this way also.

Insanely sorry, I've had a lot of shit going on in my life, so I haven't had time to work on this.

Anyway, I tried cat /var/log/dmesg |grep hd*, and got a bunch of stuff. HDA is my main HD (the one that has my windows and linux partitions, swap partitions, etc.)
HDB is my CD drive
It doesn't say anything about HDC or HDD, but it does mention usb.c, and it says:
usb.c: registered new driver hub
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 17:59:01 Mar 13 2003
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xbce0, IRQ 10
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
usb.c: registered new driver hiddev
usb.c: registered new driver hid
hid-core.c: v1.8.1 Andreas Gal, Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@suse.cz>
hid-core.c: USB HID support drivers
hub.c: new USB device 00:1f.2-1, assigned address 2
usb-uhci.c: interrupt, status 2, frame# 207
Vendor: ExcelSto Model: r Technology Rev: VA2O
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.

Sadly, I have no idea what any of this means...


To geoff_f's suggestion:

/etc/fstab says:
LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/hda6 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0

and /etc/modules.conf is
alias eth0 e100
alias usb-controller usb-uhci
alias ieee1394-controller ohci1394
alias sound-slot-0 maestro3
post-install sound-slot-0 /bin/aumix-minimal -f /etc/.aumixrc -L >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
pre-remove sound-slot-0 /bin/aumix-minimal -f /etc/.aumixrc -S >/dev/null 2>&1 || :

sorry for the horrendously long post

Your USB seems to be working OK; we just need to work out what device your USB drive is. For that we need the output, as root, of:

cat /proc/scsi/scsi

Then we can formulate a 'mount' command for your device. Your original mount command was trying to mount your CD-ROM as a USB drive, that's why you got those 'wrong fs type' and 'bad superblock' errors.

Attached devices:
Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: ExcelSto Model: r Technology Rev: VA2O
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Host: scsi1 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: MATSHITA Model: UJDA330 Rev: 1.50
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02

Looking at the mount commands I tried for it before, I tried to formulate one. So, I tried

mount -t vfat /dev/usb.c /mnt/dosdrive

Am I headed in the right direction? I'm trying to understand this, rather than just having you guys tell me the answers (which I know you loathe to do). its a FAT partition, and usb.c is what came up with
cat /var/log/dmesg |grep hd*
which is what DrOzz had said to try. I didn't really understand any of what came up with your suggestion (Geoff), did it say what I need in one of those two files?

Your USB drive won't look like /dev/hdb or the like; it will be more like /dev/sda. Try the command, at a console, as root:

fdisk -l /dev/sda

If /dev/sda is your USB drive, then it will show some output telling you the size of /dev/sda, which will match your USB drive's size. Then it will list /dev/sda1, which represents the first partition on your USB drive; it should show you the number of blocks and the filesystem type, if it exists.

So, if /dev/sda is your USB drive, your mount command is:

mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/usbdrive

You will need to have created /mnt/usbdrive beforehand and run the command:

chmod 777 /mnt/usbdrive

to get the permissions right for you to access it with yourself as user. You can use any name you like instead of 'usbdrive', such as 'dosdrive' that you used before. These steps should give you access to your USB drive.

ok, it all works now- thank you so much... been trying to get this to work for a while. The only issue is, it won't let me change the file permissions. I'm logged in as root, and I type:
chmod 777 /mnt/dosdrive/
and get
chmod: changing permissions of `/mnt/dosdrive/': Operation not permitted

why is this? I also tried writing it out (chmod o+r+w+x /mnt/dosdrive/) and it gave the same error message.

Leave off the final '/' from your command; ie, make it:

chmod 777 /mnt/dosdrive

See how that goes.

Ok, that worked. Thanks for all the help, dude. Because on the harddrive were some drivers, which let my videocard work correctly, which lets me set the resolution above 800/600... its very useful, to say the least.

My pleasure - glad I could help.

I believe you'll find that your USB device is being labeled as an sdX device (i.e. sda, sdb). Every USB or IEEE device I've plugged in comes up as such.