How to mount a hard drive dock?

JosephS · 05-10-2014, 11:17 PM

I have a NexStar dual bay hard drive dock, model nst-200.
I am using Crunchbang Waldorf 32 bit

I have tried to mount a Sata hard drive with this dock without success. I don't know how to trouble shoot this and haven't found any help on the Net. How do I go about this?

When I plugged in the dock a device showed up in /dev/sdf1
I don't know what filesystem is on it. I tried to mount it with ext4 and ntfs-3g.

Thanks

camorri · 05-11-2014, 05:41 AM

Is this a new drive? It may have no file system on it. In this case, you can partition it if you like, and format it. Then you will know what file system you have.

It would also help if you ran the commands you say didn't work, and post the output from the system, so we can see the error messages that you get. Without useful information like that, it is difficult to suggest much else.

If this is an used drive, and you have no idea what is on it, go ahead and format it, then try to mount the drive. You are doing that as root, correct?

onebuck · 05-11-2014, 09:38 AM

Hi,

Is this a hot swap dock?

Make sure you have drive in one of the bays then do a 'fdisk -l' from cli to show available disks. You can look at the type of partition via ID and System listed if the partition has been prepared for use.

Then use 'df-T' from cli;

Code:

df -T
Filesystem     Type    1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda5      ext4      3030800  900432   1973084  32% /
/dev/sda6      ext4     10190136 5794380   3871468  60% /home
/dev/sda7      ext4     10190136 7784572   1881276  81% /usr
/dev/sda8      ext4       999320  398972    547920  43% /var
/dev/sda9      ext4      3997376  305144   3482520   9% /tmp
tmpfs          tmpfs     8148576       0   8148576   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sdb2      fuseblk  14337020 7705372   6631648  54% /mnt/win7

Note the filesystem listed for one of my disk partition(s) above.

Quote:

Just a few links to aid you to gaining some understanding;

  1 Linux Documentation Project 
2 Rute Tutorial & Exposition 
3 Linux Command Guide  
4 Bash Beginners Guide 
5 Bash Reference Manual 
6 Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide 
7 Linux Newbie Admin Guide 
8 LinuxSelfHelp 
9 Utimate Linux Newbie Guide

The above links and others can be found at 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!

Hope this helps.

EDIT: You will mount the device within the dock, not the dock itself.

JosephS · 05-11-2014, 09:47 PM

plugged in dock with hard drive.
Booted computer
started Gparted - it kept scanning for 5 minutes and I gave up. I don't think it wasn't going to stop; the same with:
root@crunchbang:~# mount -t ext4 /dev/sdb1 /mnt

Code:

root@crunchbang:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf7be7ce0

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048    61442047    30720000    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2        61444094   976773119   457664513    5  Extended
/dev/sda5        61444096   163844095    51200000   83  Linux
/dev/sda6       163846144   966533119   401343488   83  Linux
/dev/sda7       966535168   976773119     5118976   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x8d568d56

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1            2048   488394751   244196352   83  Linux

Code:

root@crunchbang:~# df -T
Filesystem                                             Type     1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs                                                 rootfs    50395844 3389324  44446520   8% /
udev                                                   devtmpfs     10240       0     10240   0% /dev
tmpfs                                                  tmpfs       103352     676    102676   1% /run
/dev/disk/by-uuid/2012072d-7342-494d-821f-62b0a04cfccd ext4      50395844 3389324  44446520   8% /
tmpfs                                                  tmpfs         5120       0      5120   0% /run/lock
tmpfs                                                  tmpfs      1230480      84   1230396   1% /run/shm
/dev/sda6                                              ext4     395033044 6661940 368303932   2% /home
/dev/sda1                                              fuseblk   30719996   66928  30653068   1% /media/windows7

Whenever I try to mount /dev/sdb with the cli or scan for devices with gparted it just hangs. df didn't pick upp /dev/sdb1. Is this info helpful?

Thanks

camorri · 05-12-2014, 08:30 AM

Quote:

NexStar dual bay hard drive dock, model nst-200.

This device is appears to be e-sata, USB-3. Is that correct?

I'm thinking this may be a device driver problem. Not sure, and I have no experience with such a device.

Is this the device?

-->http://www.amazon.com/Vantec-NexStar...W6ZGTN4P4TMQQ2

JosephS · 05-12-2014, 10:43 AM

It looks like it, but the model # is different. Mine says usb 2.0 and eSata
I couldn't find any particular info on this model.

camorri · 05-12-2014, 01:34 PM

It looks like your system needs ahci.ko loaded as a module, or compiled into the kernel.

I run Slackware, and its compiled into the kernel. Here is what is in the kernel config for Slackware.

Quote:

#
# Controllers with non-SFF native interface
#
CONFIG_SATA_AHCI=y
CONFIG_SATA_AHCI_PLATFORM=y
CONFIG_SATA_INIC162X=y
CONFIG_SATA_ACARD_AHCI=y
CONFIG_SATA_SIL24=y
CONFIG_ATA_SFF=y

I also did some reading, and some of these devices need proprietary drivers supplied my the manufacturer. I have no idea if this is the case with this device. Best advice I can give here is to look at the documentation that came with the system.

If you need guidance on how to look at the kernel config, or if the module is loaded, post that request. I'll see if I can help.

JosephS · 05-12-2014, 03:17 PM

Quote:

I found this info in /boot/config-3.2.0-4-486

# Controllers with non-SFF native interface
#
CONFIG_SATA_AHCI=m
# CONFIG_SATA_AHCI_PLATFORM is not set
# CONFIG_SATA_INIC162X is not set
CONFIG_SATA_ACARD_AHCI=m
CONFIG_SATA_SIL24=m
CONFIG_ATA_SFF=y

nothing in /proc/modules for ahci.ko
root@crunchbang:~#

Code:

modprobe ahci.ko
FATAL: Module ahci.ko not found.

I don't know where the modules are located, not that familiar with drivers.

Turned on dock and hooked in usb after 10 min
gparted found device: ext4 /dev/sdf1
unable to mount with gparted
gparted had a warning label, not sure what that is for. It said filesystem was clean

Code:

root@crunchbang:/# mount -t ext4 /dev/sdf1 /mnt
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdf1,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

Code:

root@crunchbang:/# dmesg|tail
[ 9773.538142] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdf]  Add. Sense: No additional sense information
[ 9773.538149] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdf] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 00 00 08 08 00 00 08 00
[ 9773.538161] end_request: I/O error, dev sdf, sector 2056
[ 9773.538168] Buffer I/O error on device sdf1, logical block 1
[17523.359700] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdf]  Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
[17523.359708] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdf]  Sense Key : Aborted Command [current]
[17523.359714] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdf]  Add. Sense: No additional sense information
[17523.359720] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdf] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 00 00 08 08 00 00 08 00
[17523.359732] end_request: I/O error, dev sdf, sector 2056
[17523.359761] EXT4-fs (sdf1): can't read group descriptor 0

JosephS · 05-13-2014, 10:30 AM

Quote:

I found these files:
root@crunchbang:~# find / -iname '*ahci.ko*'
/lib/modules/3.2.0-4-486/kernel/drivers/ata/libahci.ko
/lib/modules/3.2.0-4-486/kernel/drivers/ata/acard-ahci.ko
/lib/modules/3.2.0-4-486/kernel/drivers/ata/ahci.ko

Code:

I tried root@crunchbang:~# modprobe ahci.ko
FATAL: Module ahci.ko not found.

How do I find the name of the module to load the driver?

Thanks

camorri · 05-13-2014, 10:52 AM

Quote:

modprobe ahci.ko

This command looks correct, however, I don't remember if adding the .ko on the end is necessary. You can try the command without the .ko on the end.

What kernel are you running? To find out, run the command as root 'uname -a' and post the results.

When you run modprobe it looks in

Quote:

/lib/modules/`uname -r`

If the kernel loaded is not 3.2.0-4-486, that would explain the 'not found'.

JosephS · 05-15-2014, 09:51 AM

modprobe ahci loaded the driver. Gparted will recognize the drive, but I can't get it to format or mount the drive. Maybe it's the drive that's a problem; I'll have to check into it.