Hi

I am trying to mount a 60GB disk to a RedHat 7.2 system. I connect via the USB port. I can use fdisk and make a partition but when I format it, I get 9.9 GB. When I use the x option in Fdisk I can change the number of cylinders but this gives me 90GB.

I have a feeling that /dev/sdb is not picking up the right number of cylinders.

Can anyone help me figure out what I need to do to format my disk with ext3 to the correct capacity?

Thanks

Run fdisk /dev/sdb(or whatever it finds it as <--If it is reading as 90GB is there a chance this isn't the drive? sda is the first mounted external device)
hit n for new
p for primary
enter to start it at the beginning
then if you want all the drive as one partition hit enter again, otherwise hit +32G i believe for 32GB of space (it says it on the printout of how to do it exactly...and obviously put whatever space you want...for all of it just hit enter)

this will set the drive size...hit w to write it

now type mke2fs -j /dev/sdb1 (or whatever the partition is)

this will write the journal and create ext3 and have ur drive working

does this help?

Hi,

Thanks but this is what I have already tried. The only thing I didn't do was reboot or use partprobe to re-read the new partition table. Once I did that and then formated the new disk and mounted it, I was able to see the right amount of space using df -h.

The problem now is mounting this disk on another linux box. The mount command doesn't want to work. The partition still looks right. But the mount command (mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb) seems to hang. Both boxes are running the same version of Redhat.

Any thoughts?

Thanks for the help so far

What format is this partition in? You may have to use mount -t (format type) /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb.

type would be either vfat for fat32 ext3 for ext3 and so on.
Also, run dmesg and see what it says...post the last few lines pertaining to your hard drive after you plug it in and turn it on.


--Jim

Typically USB drives are assigned a device IDs automatically. Check via the output of the dmesg command to see if the drive is being recognized and the ID assigned. If it is the only SCSI type device (includes USB, Firewire and SATA) then it will be /dev/sda