I have installed Fedora Core 4 on my system but it can only see the DVD and CD -R drives and the HD that FC4 is one.

I have two other HDs with several partitions on them and some of these (windows) partitions contain data that I would like to share/use in Linux.

How can I get FC4 to detect all of these other partitions on the other two HDs.

I know it can be done because I have a bootable disc program that is able to do it.

Hi,
Go through the /var/log/dmesg and /var/log/messages files to see if the kernel is at all detecting these drives? If yes then its merely a problem of mounting them under your system.

--cyberjun

thanks for your reply cyberjun but how do I know if the kernel is detecting these drives?

also if it is not how do I get it to do so?

If it is detecting them then how do I mount them?

obvious questions, but I am very much a newbie.

Hi,
No the questions are not obvious....they are pretty relevant....

fine. so in both /var/log/dmesg and /var/log/messages, look for lines similar to the ones below:

##############################################
hda: IC25N060ATMR04-0, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
Probing IDE interface ide1...
hdc: MATSHITADVD-RAM UJ-820S, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
###############################################

The above example is for a case where we have one HDD and a DVD drive. In your case there should
be entries for hdb or hdc identifying them to be DISK drives.

If you can find something like this then its fine. the drives are being detected and can be mounted once
they are partitioned and formatted correctly. (if they are having some windows partitions, even they can
be mounted.)

check and let me know. In case they are not being detected, then I really do not know how to make linux
detect them. Are they normal HDD connected through IDE interface?

--cyberjun

cyberjun, here is an extract from the message file.

I have three drives in total. Linux is loaded on the main drive with the other two having XP on each and other partitions some of which have been formatted as FAT32 to facilitate sharing files with Linux.


Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x9E0 ctl 0xBE2 bmdma 0xC800 irq 11
Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x960 ctl 0xB62 bmdma 0xC808 irq 11
Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: ata1: no device found (phy stat 00000000)
Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: scsi0 : sata_nv
Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: input: ImExPS/2 Generic Explorer Mouse on isa0060/serio1
Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: ata2: dev 0 ATA, max UDMA/133, 398297088 sectors: lba48
Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: nv_sata: Primary device removed
Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: nv_sata: Secondary device added
Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: nv_sata: Secondary device removed
Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: ata2: dev 0 configured for UDMA/133
Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: scsi1 : sata_nv
Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: Vendor: ATA Model: Maxtor 6Y200M0 Rev: YAR5
Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05
Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: SCSI device sda: 398297088 512-byte hdwr sectors (203928 MB)
Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back
Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: SCSI device sda: 398297088 512-byte hdwr sectors (203928 MB)
Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back
Oct 17 21:51:30 localhost kernel: sda: sda1 sda2 < sda5 sda6 sda7 > sda3

Assuming the drives are being detected, how do I mount them?

It seems that the system is detecting them because if I log in as root and go to system tools>Hardware Browser

I can see three HDDs, sda,sdb and sdc.

It also shows all the partitions and if are ntfs, fat32 etc etc.

Hi,
Although the dmesg output doesn't list sdb and sdc, I assume they are getting detected as they are present in your hardware browser. Ok so now you have to just mount them with proper commands. Lets say your sdb drive has 3 partitions sdb1, sdb2 and sdb3.
Then as root do the following:

bash# mkdir /mnt/XPdrive1
bash# chmod 777 /mnt/XPdrive1
bash# mount -t ntfs -o ro /dev/sdb1 /mnt/XPdrive1 [Assuming /dev/sdb1 is NTFS]

The above set of commands will mount /dev/sdb1 as NTFS volume at /mnt/XPdrive1 in readonly mode. I am not sure what is the current status of the NTFS driver but it is recommended that it should be used in readonly mode as there is potential for your NTFS partition to get damaged in readwrite mode. Now for the FAT or FAT32 types, you can try the following commands.

bash# mkdir /mnt/XPdrive2
bash# chmod 777 /mnt/XPdrive2
bash# mount -t vfat /dev/sdb2 /mnt/XPdrive2 [Assuming /dev/sdb2 is FAT32 or FAT]

FAT and FAT32 is well supported undet linux and the drives can be safely mounted in readwrite mode.

Cheers,
--cyberjun

OK I haev done those and I can now see one of the FAT32 partitions in Linux it is in mnt.

However, I can not see any of the folders or the files. Only if I login as root can I see the files and folders. How do I change this so that I can access the files withoout being root?

Hi,

First unmount the drive:

bash# umount /mnt.XPdrive2

Now execute the following commands

bash# chmod 777 /mnt/XPdrive2
bash# mount -t vfat -o users,umask=0000 /dev/sdb2 /mnt/XPdrive2 [Assuming /dev/sdb2 is FAT32 or FAT]


After this you should be able to access the drive as a normal user as well. If you want to make this change permanent, i.e you want this to be done after each reboot, put it in your /etc/fstab file, like this:

/dev/sdb2 /mnt/XPdrive2 vfat users,umask=0000 0 0

Keep in mind that the /etc/fstab file is read by the system only at boot time.

cheers,
--cyberjun

Thanks for that cyberjun.

It works perfectly.

What I like about linux as opposed to windows is that it does waht it says ont he tin!.

i almost got the same problem but i cannot detect my second harddrive is in ntfs im also a newbie..
i got lot of data there that i cant lose and i would like to share and use on fedora 4

i just would like to make it detectable Read & Write to keep saving files there.

i hardware browse the second hd and the path looks like

/dev/hdb Type Ntfs
hdb1 120 gb space

plz i would like to get answered thx for ur help