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Old 12-06-2007, 02:45 PM   #1
MarkB2007
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Mounting USB HDD in Ubuntu 6.10 LiveCD


Hi,

First post, hopefully followed by a great deal more.

In short, I'm trying to access the data stored on my DVR hard drive. Not surprisingly, the drive does not mount at all in Windows. The drive is split into 2 partitions - the first one is an ext2 partition, which can be read by the Ubuntu 6.10 LiveCD I'm using, but only contains minimal, and useless, data. The other partition, which I suspect to store the actual recorded data, doesn't have a file system.

I have the drive connected via an IDE to USB converter. When I connect the device, the first partition with the ext2 file system, automounts and is shown as "203.9 MB Volume: usbdisk" in Computer. The other partition, however, isn't listed - I assume because it has no file system.

The drive is shown in device manager with 2 volumes - one listed simply as "Volume" and the other as "Volume (ext2).

I have tried using the terminal and the following commands to mount the partition;

Code:
cd /mnt
sudo mkdir dvrhdd
sudo mount /dev/sdb2 dvrhdd
And received a terminal message stating that I "must specify a filesystem type". Is it possible to actually access the data on the HDD without having a file system on the drive? I've only used Linux very sparingly, and had to search to find the command to mount a drive, so don't have a great deal of experience with it like I do with Windows. I'm wary of installing a new file system on the drive as this would require a format of the partition, which I don't want o do, as I don't know what's stored on it, or if the drive will work in the DVR with a file system registered on the data partition.

Anyone have any idea if it's possible to mount this partition when it doesn't have a file system?

Thanks for any advice!

Best regards,

Mark.
 
Old 12-06-2007, 04:51 PM   #2
LlNUX
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mount usb in lunx

http://www.linuxconfig.org/Howto_mou...drive_in_Linux
 
Old 12-06-2007, 05:25 PM   #3
oskar
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Could you post the output of
Code:
sudo fdisk -l
With the drive attached.

...So how did you write stuff on that partition? using dd? A filesystem is a really good idea, I suggest you use one :P
 
Old 12-07-2007, 07:09 PM   #4
MarkB2007
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Linux - I had a read through that page, but like I was saying, I've only used Linux very sparingly, and really didn't have much idea what was going on in the terminal example listed. From what I read though, it seemed to be saying to mount the drive, which I've already attempted, and got the error shown in my original post stating that I had to specify a filesystem. As there isn't one on the drive, that's a little difficult.

oskar - The results of sudo fdisk -l are as follows;

Code:
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1          13      104391   de  Dell Utility
/dev/sda2              14        1319    10485760    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3   *        1342       19130   142890141    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4           19131       19458     2621440    5  Extended
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda5           19131       19458     2620416   dd  Unknown

Disk /dev/sdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1          26      208813+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb2              27        9729    77939347+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb is the DVR HDD - 80GB drive, 2 partitions. It's interesting that it reports it as a Linux file system when Acronis reports it as not having a file system at all. I'd definitely agree with the usage of a file system - it always helps. However, it's my DVR that's written the data to the HDD, not me, that's why it doesn't have a file system, and the reason for the original post.
 
Old 12-07-2007, 10:44 PM   #5
syg00
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You can't mount it without a (known) filesystem - otherwise the VFS layer can't determine which block driver to use.
The DVR (obviously) knows the format of the data; we don't. Yet. Try "sudo file -s /dev/sdb2"
BTW that "Id" of 83 merely indicates it's a Linux partition - nothing to do with format.
 
Old 12-07-2007, 11:11 PM   #6
oskar
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Quote:
Originally Posted by syg00 View Post
BTW that "Id" of 83 merely indicates it's a Linux partition - nothing to do with format.
Yup, I noticed that just now...
 
Old 12-08-2007, 09:41 AM   #7
MarkB2007
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Using "sudo file -s /dev/sdb2" results in "/dev/sdb2: Linux rev 1.0 ext2 filesystem data".

To my newbie mind, that looks somewhat promising.
 
Old 12-08-2007, 08:57 PM   #8
syg00
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Do "sudo mount -t ext2 /dev/sdb2 dvrhdd" work ???
 
Old 12-09-2007, 10:46 AM   #9
MarkB2007
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Unfortunately not; "Wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb2, missing codepage or other error. In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | or so".
 
Old 12-19-2007, 05:18 PM   #10
MarkB2007
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Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has any final ideas before I give up.

Thanks!
 
Old 12-20-2007, 06:53 PM   #11
oskar
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Did you run a filesystem check? "fsck.ext2 [dev]"?
You might have to look at the manpage... there are also countless tutorials on the web. I'm not too lazy to write it down for you, I just don't feel qualified.
 
Old 12-21-2007, 03:14 PM   #12
oskar
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Connect it to ide when you do... just to have one less variable.
 
Old 12-21-2007, 06:18 PM   #13
MarkB2007
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Hi Oskar, thanks for replying.

I ran fsck.ext2 /dev/sdb2 on the drive and got the following output;

Quote:
e2fsck 1.39 (29-May-2006)
fsck.ext2: The ext2 superblock is corrupt while trying to open /dev/sdb2

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
e2fsck -b 8193 <device>
I've done a lot of searching pretty much everywhere to see if there are any programs, either in Windows or Linux, that can check the partition data (start and end cylinders, partition headers etc.) and try to identify the file system, but I was surprised to find that there don't seem to be any, which is quite disappointing. To me, it looks like some sort of proprietary file system is being used, but if running sudo file -s /dev/sdb2 shows that it's an ext2 partition, I don't understand why it can't mount it.
 
Old 12-21-2007, 10:33 PM   #14
MarkB2007
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Update - and it's a good one, thank God! I decided to do a random search using the name of one of the files on the readable partition to see if it brought anything up and found this page that contains some information on the drive format. The DVR that the OP is using in that thread is not the same one that I'm using, but it's the same file structure and format. The hidden partition is an ext2 partition, but it uses a 32kb block size, hence why Ubuntu was having so much trouble reading it. I downloaded and installed Win2FS, which is mentioned in the page, and it identified the partitions and mounted them in Windows. I can now access the second partition, but I'm getting some BAD_POOL_HEADER BSODs when attempting to copy the files, which I think is related to the driver for Win2FS, possibly a conflict with one of the many others I have loaded.

Anyway, I'm going to take it from here, but now that I have access to the files, it shouldn't be much more more difficult to convert the files from .trp to a usable format.

Thanks LINUX, oskar and syg00 for all your help, it is very much appreciated.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas and new year!

Mark.
 
  


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