Some months ago I started to load Slackware 13.37 on a new computer with a 40 GB SSD. I went back to finish the job today and could not get fdisk to find sda. The command df found the drive in /dev/devtmpfs, however I haven't been able to get fdisk to connect to the SSD which apparently is not mounted. The installation program will not proceed and complains that the drive has not been partitioned.

I clicked the "find similar threads", but lost the results and can not repeat that initial search. I tried this about 5 times.

I though that I had finished partitioning the SSD when I shut it down last time, but was not happy with the way it turned out.

It is a new,modern machine using an i3-3220 CPU, 40 GB SSD, 8 GB of ram, with a DVD optical drive.

Needless to say I am a newbie and would appreciate any help.

Thanks;

Tom

What does this return ?(lower case ell, for "list")

Hi Tom,

It's possible that your SSD may not be physically connected any longer or you didn't finish partitioning it properly the last time.

Assuming there is no data on the SSD you want to keep ...

Boot the Slackware installation media (as you did before) and list the disks found with the command ...
(that's a lowercase L)

Note the disk names that are listed. Probably "/dev/sda".

Then partition the disk with the command
.. or whatever device name the fdisk -l command returns.

Remember in fdisk to execute the command 'w' to write the partition to the drive.

If no disks are found check the connections.

Some people prefer to use cfdisk instead of fdisk. I like fdisk.

-------

Technical Note: filesystems are mounted not disk drives nor disk partitions. First you partition a disk, then you create a file system on the partition, then you mount that file system. All you have to do is partition the disk, the installation process ("setup") will take care of the rest as you follow the process.

EDIT: Slow typist. syg00 mentioned the important part.

Nah, you were trying to be (more) helpful - I was merely looking for info at this stage ...

[Duplicate of next post, please disregard]

Maybe this just a problem with the device name. To find out we need the list of all block devices. So please provide the output of following command:... And tell us what is the name of the SSD in that output.

Thanks for the replies. Here is what I get for reach suggestion.

fdisk -1. Returns :/# That is nothing only the prompt.

fdisk-1 /dev/sda Returns: no such file or directory.

lsbik -o MAJ,NAME,KNAME,FSTYPT,MODEL,SIZE,,TYPE,MOUNTPOINT,STATE returns. lsbik: not found. Using lower case L.

Additional information, The bios sees the drive. The motherboard is a Asus P8H77-V.

I am using a Kindle to send this, so typing is a challenge.

Thanks
Tom

Not sure if this is a Kindle issue or not but to make sure you're typing the commands correctly ...

Since you've booted the from installation media you're running each of these commands as root.

The argument for this fdisk command is a lowercase 'L' not the digit '1'.

The command to find all connected disks is:
The command to partition a disk is:

No "-l" (ell) argument is used when partitioning a disk.


The command is lsblk (LSBLK - list block devices). There is no 'i' (eye) in the command.

You probably typed all of the commands properly and are just struggling with the use of Kindle in the post. I just mention these items in case you mistyped them in Slackware.

Tracy,

I dont think that I have missed typed either time. I have used l, a lower case L for list.

:/# fdisk /dev/sda. Returns, unable to open /dev/sda No such file or directory.

?

The Slackware machine has a key board. The Kindle is a virtual hunt and peck. A real pain.

Tom

What gives the lsblk command, then?

lsbik in root or /dev# returns, lsbik: not found.

Tom

Are you typing lsblk (LSBLK) or lsbik (LSBIK)?

I am typing l ell, s, b, i eye, k. All lower case.

Tom

That should be l ell, s, b, l ell, k. All lower case.

Dider,

lsblk, just returned to the prompt.

lsblk -o, gave me a list of available columns. Type and state were not included. There may have been more, I do not know how to scroll back. There was a note that for more information see the MAN pages.

Now it just returnes to the prompt.

Tom