Hi there. Sorry, but I'm an absolute beginner with Linux. Never used it before in my life. I'm trying to mount a 230Gb Iomega external hard drive to my Raspberry Pi (running Debian for Pi, with LXDE) via a USB. I have a guide to the Pi, and it's told me to use:
sudo fdisk -l
to get a list of disks in the USB. I have no trouble finding it, but when I try to mount it (after making a mount point and changing which users can find it) with the command:
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /media/externaldrive -o=rw
it gives me an error message that says:
mount: optmap.c:199: mnt_optmap_get_entry: Assertion 'namelen' failed.
I really need help with this. As I said, I've never used Linux before, and I don't understand what the error message is telling me. Any help is really appreciated.
Thanks!

P.S. The LXDE will not automatically find or mount the hard drive for me!

Is this a self powered hard drive? You know RaspberryPi uses very little power, Just enough to power the board. So if you want to run other devices with it these devices must have their own power supply or they must use very little power.

Just for practice the excersice try to mount a regular small flash drive, perhaps 1 GB flash drive and see it the commands you are issuing are correct. The Pi should handle a small device like that.

Good luck to you!

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Sorry if I wasn't clear. I'm struggling to get the Pi to mount any USB devices, and yes, the hard drive is self-powered. I have managed to mount one pendrive, but I really need the large storage provided by the hard drive. Thanks for the reply!

Hi

Dougski
try If it mounts ok but not on reboot you will have to make a change in /etc/fstab file, then it will mount when booted

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Ok, thanks spiky0011, entered that, and it warned me that:
mount: warning: /media/externaldrive seems to be mounted read-only
any ideas?
Also, I'm a beginner at Linux, so I'm unsure about the second part of your reply, could you explain?
Thanks very much!

Also, when I entered the LXDE, it didn't show the external hard drive as being connected.
Any other ideas?

ok do you need to write to it?

The /etc/fstab file mounts devices on boot so if it dosn't mount when you reboot we need to edit that file.

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Whats the output of

Yes, it would be ideal if I could write to it. How do I access the /etc/fstab file, or do I just need to reboot. If it's just a reboot job how do I do that, just sudo halt -p?
or is there another way?

Thanks for the help, by the way!

ok, i entered the new code you gave me and it gave:
/dev/mmcblk0p1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" UUID="A1B1-918F" TYPE="vfat"
and
/dev/mmcblk0p2: UUID="10b4c001-2137-4418-b29e-57b7d15a6cbc" TYPE="ext4

does that help?
it means nothing to me!

ok run post output

to reboot try

Also can you post the /etc/fstab file.

not sure what txt editors you have on that you could try vim /etc/fstab or gedit /etc/fstab

sudo blkid gave:
/dev/mmcblk0p1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" UUID="A1B1-918F" TYPE="vfat"
and
/dev/mmcblk0p2: UUID="10b4c001-2137-4418-b29e-57b7d15a6cbc" TYPE="ext4

ok try

ok, i've rebooted, so give me a sec and i'll check if it's loaded the drive.

ok, i've rebooted, and the Pi has recognised the drive, which is a first, but when I try to load it in LXDE, it says:
Error mounting: mount: /dev/sda1 is not a valid block device


and when I entered:
sudo fdisk -l
the result gave me no results, apart from the SD card and another device (I don't know what it is, but I know its not the hard drive.

sorry!

Any other ideas?



I also tried to get the file like you suggested, but it told me the vim & gedit were commands not found


I should also add that till I get the Pi running, I'm keeping it offline, so I'm posting on my Windows laptop.

ok whats the output of mount