Need Help Installing 80Gb NTFS Formatted HD to Suse 10.1
 

I have some server files on my working Suse Linux 10.1 System. However, I'd like to add an 80gb Hard Drive to this system as hdb to backup some of the files on hda. My problem is that hdb is formatted with NTFS. Do I re-format to FAT32 or keep the NTFS format? Or what's the best thing to do? Please Help...

If you don't intend to share the drive with Windows then I recommend you repartition and format with ext3 or similar, if you keep NTFS you may lose metadata like acl's, permissions etc depending on how you perform the backups

Thank's for the reply. I'd like to make the new drive (hdb) capable of storing the files I have on hda. Hda is running only Suse Linux 10.1. Hdb may have been used for Windows due to the NTFS format on it. However, I just want to run Suse Linux 10.1 on hdb. I'm a noob on linux programing. Can you please tell me what ext3 is and how to use or get it? I have Partition Magic but it only runs under Windows.

I haven't use SuSE in a long time but I believe that you could log on as root and use Yast to do this. Setting the disk up in Yast would be similar to doing the same thing in Windows disk administrator, if you were doing this in Windows.

Or you could just do that from the command line. Note that the following instructions will delete any information that is currently on the disk drive.

This is the very quick answer.
That will create the ext3 file system on the disk drive. (BTW are you sure that the disk drives are named hda, hdb, etc.? I would have expected them to be named sda, sdb, ... etc. As I said, I haven't use SuSE in a long time.)

Once you have the disk drive formatted then you need to decide if you want it to mount automatically when you start the system. You also have to decide where you want to mount it.

Another consideration is whether the new disk drive has only one partition. If it has more than one partition do you want to combine them?

You're probably safer to remove the partition and re-create it as linux (type 83)
I sometimes find that you can't repartition a disk properly without a reboot if it's originally been used for Windows

.. reboot

hth

Thank's stress junkie & kbp, using You're help, I was able to remove NTFS and reset hdb1 to ext3. After looking at the properties of hda1 and hda2 (a single 300gbhd) I found that they were not ext3 but were reiserfs. So I deleted the ext3 format on hdb1 and followed kpb's post to change ext3 to reiserfs. OK, whem I reboot I see the 3 hd's in the system folder. However, the new hd hdb1 is mot mounted like hda1 & hda2. I know how to right-click on a file, folder or hd to set permissions. Hda1 and hda2 will let me. But hdb1 will not. When T try to open the dirve folder I'm getting the Permission Denied error box, but everything looks normal. So, can anyone please tell me how to mount the drive and set permissions?

First, SuSe 10.1 support cycle is long over. Open to a newer version of OpenSuse if you can (openSuse replace the old SuSe line). If you use Suse Enterprise Linux Desktop, ignore this statement, it is a different product, but you should call it SLED 10SP1 and not SuSe 10.1. OpenSuse 10.1 does not support writting on NTFS drive, but as you removed NTFS, you don't have to worry about that anymore. About Reiser vs Ext3, you can use both, ext3 and reiser are supported in OpenSuse. I strongly recommand not using Reiser4, but ReiserFs is fine, be sure not to use 4, you will probably lose data. Reiser is not really developed anymore, it's author is in jail for life and the rest of his team do only minor fixes.

About the permission problem, the root of the drive is probably owned by root. Open a terminal and write chmod 777 -R on the drive mounting point.

While I agree that your recommendation has some merit in the long term I think that he can continue using this older version productively for some time. The main problems with using an old version are security patches not available and difficulty finding other people using the same version.

Nevertheless I think that we should focus on the task at hand and not tell him to completely replace is operating system.

IMO, of course. :)

To mount it automatically at boot you can add it to /etc/fstab -

As root:

Thank's again for all the help. I had find out how to use pico to find and bring up the etc/fstab file to edit. I used "Beginning SUSE LINUX Second Edition" by Keir Thomas to make a directory called second_drive to mount the volume on.
Commands I used as root:
-----------------------------------------------
mkdir /second_disk
chmod a+w /second_disk

# to edit the /etc/fstab
pico /etc/fstab

# I added this to the end of the /etc/fstab file
/dev/hdb1 /second_disk reiserfs default 0 2

I hit Enter and the re-booted. Still no go but I will try kbp's -->

# make a directory to mount the volume on
mkdir /storage

# label the volume
tunefs.reiserfs -l Storage /dev/hdb1 # This line seems to be missing from the book's instructions.

# add a line to /etc/fstab
LABEL=Storage /storage reiserfs defaults 1 2

--------------------------------------------------------------------
--> and report back. Thank's again for all the help... DBD
--> Reporting Back: tunefs.reiserfs "not reconized error msg"
Any ideas?.

?'s for Elv1.3-->
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your Reply
About the permission problem, the root of the drive is probably owned by root. Open a terminal and write chmod 777 -R on the drive mounting point
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Me ?'s
What and where b the drive mounting point?

Sorry, I don't use reiserfs or SuSE so I had to look up that command. A quick search turned up these instructions for labelling a volume :

hth

I can open the Yast tool folder but I don's see any partiton options. do i have to reinsert the Suse 10.1 DVD disk?

You need to run it, not open the folder

IT's Working!!!!!! Got it working at last...... I found this post from someone nammed "unix".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Use fdisk to create a partition "fdisk /dev/hdb"
- Make the file system "mkfs /dev/hdb1"
- Create a mount point for the new drive "mkdir /mnt/newdisk"
- Mount the disk "mount /dev/hdb1 /mnt/newdisk"
- Use the drive!
Edit the /etc/fstab file if you want to automatically have the new drive
available at each boot
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After did the above, I found and used the Yast Partitioner App to compare hdb1 properties with those of hda2 and hda3. Hdb1 was there along with hda2 and hda3. After selecting hdb1 and by checking my mount point with the other hd's mount points it all came clear to me just what I needed to do. . I had use the EDIT function to add "/mnt/newdisk" for hdb1 mount point. After rechecking before applying the new settings, I checked my "etc/fstab/" file it was ok. I rebooted and now hdb1 is mounted and will let me set permissions. I coppied and pasted a 5Gb Server file to the /mnt/newdisk filder. I can now verrify that hdb1 has used up 5Gb.
Thank's Again for all the help.... DBD

Thank you for posting the answer. Now if you could mark the thread solved by going to the top of the page and looking under the Thread Tools menu others will know that this issue has an answer. :)