hdd problem with sata drives

LinuxGuru707 · 09-15-2007, 11:07 PM

Hi,
im trying to install 4 serial ata hdd western digital 250gb with suse linux 10.2. after linux is done installing it reboots and says

booting from local disk...
invalid partition table.

am im doing something wrong? i have used the use entire hard disk drive utlity that is in yast and then it auto partitions the drive for me but then this problem occurs. i have tried to reimage but did not work.
please help with any thoughts

my hard is a k8n-dl with dual amd 240 cpu's and 3gb of ram.

thanks

LaughingBoy · 09-15-2007, 11:50 PM

Hi,

How are you using the drives? In any form of RAID? S/W? H/W? Or are they JBOD, and you're using them as you see fit for various partitions?

If the latter, then try installing to just the one drive (unplug the other three), and then after you've installed successfully, plug the drives back in and add partitions and mount them as required.

HTH,

LaughingBoy.

LinuxGuru707 · 09-16-2007, 01:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaughingBoy

Hi,

How are you using the drives? In any form of RAID? S/W? H/W? Or are they JBOD, and you're using them as you see fit for various partitions?

If the latter, then try installing to just the one drive (unplug the other three), and then after you've installed successfully, plug the drives back in and add partitions and mount them as required.

HTH,

LaughingBoy.

hi,
im not using raid just 4 single drives nothing special. my pc boots fine with just 1 drive. how would i go about mounting them?

LaughingBoy · 09-16-2007, 11:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LinuxGuru707

hi,
im not using raid just 4 single drives nothing special. my pc boots fine with just 1 drive. how would i go about mounting them?

There's the command prompt way, and the GUI way. I'll assume you're using SuSE, and unfortunately, I don't know the GUI way in SuSE.

From the command prompt, you can create a directory to mount the drive on:

Code:

mkdir /mnt/disk1

Then mount a partition from the drive there:

Code:

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/disk1

Repeat for the number of drives / partitions per drive, mounting each one in a new location.

If the drives are clean (no partitions) then you should create some partitions on them first. Try using the graphical fdisk app : gparted. It's very similar to Partition Magic.

Now, to ensure they mount every time you boot up, you'll need to edit the File System Table file, found here : /etc/fstab. As the root user, edit the file to add additional lines at the bottom for each partition you want to automagically mount at each bootup. Follow the syntax in the lines above your entry in the file for completeness - Device <tab> Mount point <tab> file system type <tab> mount options <tab> 1 <space> 2

HTH,

LaughingBoy.

LinuxGuru707 · 09-17-2007, 06:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaughingBoy

There's the command prompt way, and the GUI way. I'll assume you're using SuSE, and unfortunately, I don't know the GUI way in SuSE.

From the command prompt, you can create a directory to mount the drive on:

Code:

mkdir /mnt/disk1

Then mount a partition from the drive there:

Code:

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/disk1

Repeat for the number of drives / partitions per drive, mounting each one in a new location.

If the drives are clean (no partitions) then you should create some partitions on them first. Try using the graphical fdisk app : gparted. It's very similar to Partition Magic.

Now, to ensure they mount every time you boot up, you'll need to edit the File System Table file, found here : /etc/fstab. As the root user, edit the file to add additional lines at the bottom for each partition you want to automagically mount at each bootup. Follow the syntax in the lines above for completeness - Device <tab> Mount point <tab> file system type <tab> options <tab> 1 <space> 2

HTH,

LaughingBoy.

ok thank you so much ill try it out

LaughingBoy · 09-18-2007, 02:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LinuxGuru707

ok thank you so much ill try it out

No problem. Let us know how you go.

LinuxGuru707 · 09-18-2007, 11:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaughingBoy

No problem. Let us know how you go.

ok its telling me i need to specify the filesystem type

LaughingBoy · 09-20-2007, 12:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LinuxGuru707

ok its telling me i need to specify the filesystem type

Have you formatted the drives, yet? Created partitions on them? If so, it should automagically find them. If you've not done that yet, then you'll need to create the partitions, and format them using mkfs. Then mount will have no problems mounting them.

LinuxGuru707 · 09-20-2007, 11:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaughingBoy

Have you formatted the drives, yet? Created partitions on them? If so, it should automagically find them. If you've not done that yet, then you'll need to create the partitions, and format them using mkfs. Then mount will have no problems mounting them.

ok ill try that and let you know
thanks

LinuxGuru707 · 09-24-2007, 11:19 PM

ok from the directory that i created i tried to create my filesystem
i typed mkfs ext3 and it gave me a message saying the device apparently does not exist did you specify correctly?

that is what i get im not sure what to do.

i tried creating the partition in yast but the drive still wont show up.
please help if you can

thanks

LaughingBoy · 09-25-2007, 11:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LinuxGuru707

ok from the directory that i created i tried to create my filesystem
i typed mkfs ext3 and it gave me a message saying the device apparently does not exist did you specify correctly?

that is what i get im not sure what to do.

i tried creating the partition in yast but the drive still wont show up.
please help if you can

thanks

Hi,
The correct usage for formatting the partition, is :

Code:

mkfs.ext3 <device_name>

ie: If you created /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdb2 and /dev/sdb3 (3x primary partitions on your second SATA drive), you would type:

Code:

mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1
mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb2
mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb3

Now, if you created the partitions with ID=0x83, then you could omit the ".ext3" part, and just use:

Code:

mkfs /dev/sdb1

etc, as mkfs would check the ID and format the partition appropriately.

Can you post the output of:

Code:

fdisk -l