Cannot mount a partition. Please help!

rushy2uk · 08-14-2006, 06:02 AM

I've just noticed that my SuSE server has been running a bit sluggish recently. On further investigation, it seems like it's not using a 21GB partition (sda2).

When I view the properties of sda2, it shows as unmounted, and when I try to calculate the size, it says "permission denied".

A screenprint can be seen here: http://upp-uk.com/assets/forum_pix/screenprint.jpg

Here is the output from "fdisk -l" if it helps:

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80032038912 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9730 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1         262     2104483+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2   *         263        2873    20972857+  83  Linux
/dev/sda3            2874        9730    55078852+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5            2874        5484    20972826   83  Linux
/dev/sda6            5485        9730    34105963+  83  Linux

I was about to play around in the Partitioner Yast module, but thought I'd better get more info before screwing up the whole server!!

Here's a screenprint of Partitioner, that I was about to use:
http://upp-uk.com/assets/forum_pix/screenprint2.jpg

Is it ok to use this module?
I just want to add extra space to the root drive.
I thought Linux just sees everything as one big drive, but now I'm confused with this unmounted partition.

How can I resolve this problem?

J3N7iL · 08-14-2006, 07:45 AM

the little start next to your sda2 in fdisk means its your boot partition, if it wasant working your system wouldent boot up. I would deffinatly leave it alone. your boot partition should mount to

Code:

/boot/

thier is really nothing you should put in thier unless your recompiling your kernel, other wise its safer to have it unmounted when the server is running, this keeps apps from accssing you grub.

If this is an external storage (which i think it is since its on a scsi) you may have partitioned it as a system disk and not a storage disk, im not certain how suse does what it does.

use Gentoo

michaelk · 08-14-2006, 08:43 AM

The asterisk next to sda2 is the boot flag but linux does not use it.
20 gb is slightly on the large size for a dedicated /boot partition. If you look in /boot and see files then it is part of the sda5 partition.

All filesystems are attached i.e. mounted to the tree with / being the top.
Even though sda2 is not mounted it should not effect the speed of the OS. Do you have an entry in the /etc/fstab file for this partition? If it is then check the output of dmesg and the logs for errors. You can mount it like

mount -t reiserfs /dev/sda2 /media/whatever (create the whatever directory if it does not already exist)

rushy2uk · 08-15-2006, 06:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaelk

The asterisk next to sda2 is the boot flag but linux does not use it.
20 gb is slightly on the large size for a dedicated /boot partition. If you look in /boot and see files then it is part of the sda5 partition.

All filesystems are attached i.e. mounted to the tree with / being the top.
Even though sda2 is not mounted it should not effect the speed of the OS. Do you have an entry in the /etc/fstab file for this partition? If it is then check the output of dmesg and the logs for errors. You can mount it like

mount -t reiserfs /dev/sda2 /media/whatever (create the whatever directory if it does not already exist)

Thanks for the replies guys!
Here is the contents of etc/fstab :

Code:

/dev/sda5            /                    reiserfs   acl,user_xattr        1 1
/dev/sda6            /home                reiserfs   acl,user_xattr        1 2
/dev/sda1            swap                 swap       defaults              0 0
proc                 /proc                proc       defaults              0 0
sysfs                /sys                 sysfs      noauto                0 0
debugfs              /sys/kernel/debug    debugfs    noauto                0 0
usbfs                /proc/bus/usb        usbfs      noauto                0 0
devpts               /dev/pts             devpts     mode=0620,gid=5       0 0

There are files within the /boot directory, here's a screenprint of the properties: http://www.upp-uk.com/assets/forum_p...properties.png

I mounted sda2 to /test by running this command:

Code:

mount -t reiserfs /dev/sda2 /test

Now, when I go into /test is see a load of folders, shown in this screenprint: http://www.upp-uk.com/assets/forum_p..._directory.png

This made me wonder if my previous installation attempt may have caused this? I installed once before on the server, but decided to reinstall afterwards.

Is it safe to delete these folders in /test now?

How can I permanently mount sda2 so that there is more hard drive space for the system as a whole?

michaelk · 08-15-2006, 07:33 AM

It is possible that this was an old install and it is safe to delete.

You can not add the space to / or /home easily but you could move /var or /usr to this partition or just use it for data.

linuxnut2003 · 08-15-2006, 08:40 AM

to add this partition as a "permanently mounted" partition you would have to add a line to /etc/fstab resembling this so it will be mounted automatically at boot

Code:

/dev/sda2    /mnt/storage    reiserfs    rw,noexec    0    0

for more info run man 8 mount

rushy2uk · 08-15-2006, 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaelk

It is possible that this was an old install and it is safe to delete.

You can not add the space to / or /home easily but you could move /var or /usr to this partition or just use it for data.

Can I not repartition the hard drive somehow to add the space allocated to sda2, to sda5 say?
If so, how would I do this?

michaelk · 08-15-2006, 02:53 PM

No, AFAIK you can not move a reiserfs filesystem.

rushy2uk · 08-15-2006, 03:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaelk

No, AFAIK you can not move a reiserfs filesystem.

Wow I'm shocked!
I would have thought you could repartition a hard drive with Linux, as Windows has a application called Partitionmagic, and I've always found equivalents for Linux so far.

Can anybody else confirm this?

rushy2uk · 08-16-2006, 03:36 AM

Anybody???