problems mounting fat32 partition

[Tom]

Hi,

I have just installed Fedora Core 3, dual boot with Win XP. I have a 
separate partition for my files and so on, and I want to access it from 
linux. This is the set up of my system:
hda:
- hda1 (Windows XP - NTFS ~15GB)
- hda2 (Files - FAT32 ~ 25GB)
hdd:
- hdd1 (/boot - ext3 ~ 100MB)
- hdd2 - LVM Physical Volume (containing swap and /  ~20GB)

This is recognised by the Hardware Browser, but when I try to mount 
hda2, it does not seem to exist in /dev, so unsurprisingly, I get the 
error: "mount: special device /dev/hda2 does not exist"

any ideas?
Tom.

[Vinicius]

Tom escreveu:
> Hi,
>
> I have just installed Fedora Core 3, dual boot with Win XP. I have a 
> separate partition for my files and so on, and I want to access it from 
> linux. This is the set up of my system:
> hda:
> hda1 (Windows XP - NTFS ~15GB)
> hda2 (Files - FAT32 ~ 25GB)
>
> hdd:
> hdd1 (/boot - ext3 ~ 100MB)
> hdd2 - LVM Physical Volume (containing swap and /  ~20GB)
>
> This is recognised by the Hardware Browser, but when I try to mount 
> hda2, it does not seem to exist in /dev, so unsurprisingly, I get the 
> error: "mount: special device /dev/hda2 does not exist"
>
> any ideas?
> Tom.

http://fedoranews.org/contributors/konrad_kosmowski/fat/

[Tom]

Thanks, but that still doesn't explain why I can't find /dev/hda2 in the 
first place.

I have since found that booting into rescue mode from the install CD 
does find /dev/hda2 and mounts it accordingly. But it still doesn't work 
on a normal boot up.

Vinicius wrote:
> Tom escreveu:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have just installed Fedora Core 3, dual boot with Win XP. I have a 
> > separate partition for my files and so on, and I want to access it 
> > from linux. This is the set up of my system:
> > hda:
> > hda1 (Windows XP - NTFS ~15GB)
> > hda2 (Files - FAT32 ~ 25GB)
> >
> > hdd:
> > hdd1 (/boot - ext3 ~ 100MB)
> > hdd2 - LVM Physical Volume (containing swap and /  ~20GB)
> >
> > This is recognised by the Hardware Browser, but when I try to mount 
> > hda2, it does not seem to exist in /dev, so unsurprisingly, I get the 
> > error: "mount: special device /dev/hda2 does not exist"
> >
> > any ideas?
> > Tom.
>
> http://fedoranews.org/contributors/konrad_kosmowski/fat/

[Vinicius]

Tom escreveu:
> Thanks, but that still doesn't explain why I can't find /dev/hda2 in the 
> first place.
>
> I have since found that booting into rescue mode from the install CD 
> does find /dev/hda2 and mounts it accordingly. But it still doesn't work 
> on a normal boot up.
>
> Vinicius wrote:
> > Tom escreveu:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I have just installed Fedora Core 3, dual boot with Win XP. I have a 
> > > separate partition for my files and so on, and I want to access it 
> > > from linux. This is the set up of my system:
> > > hda:
> > > hda1 (Windows XP - NTFS ~15GB)
> > > hda2 (Files - FAT32 ~ 25GB)
> > >
> > > hdd:
> > > hdd1 (/boot - ext3 ~ 100MB)
> > > hdd2 - LVM Physical Volume (containing swap and /  ~20GB)
> > >
> > > This is recognised by the Hardware Browser, but when I try to mount 
> > > hda2, it does not seem to exist in /dev, so unsurprisingly, I get the 
> > > error: "mount: special device /dev/hda2 does not exist"
> > >
> > > any ideas?
> > > Tom.
> >
> > http://fedoranews.org/contributors/konrad_kosmowski/fat/

After the boot in normal mode, at the prompt on a terminal, what the 
command "ls /dev/hda*" shows?

[Deron Meranda]

On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 17:41:57 -0200, Vinicius  wrote:
> After the boot in normal mode, at the prompt on a terminal, what the
> command "ls /dev/hda*" shows?

Also what's the output from these two commands (must run as root),

fdisk -l /dev/hda
  cat /proc/partitions

[Tom]

> On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 17:41:57 -0200, Vinicius

wrote:
> > After the boot in normal mode, at the prompt on a terminal, what the 
> > command "ls /dev/hda*" shows?
>
> Also what's the output from these two commands (must run as root),
>
> fdisk -l /dev/hda
>  cat /proc/partitions
>
> -- 
> Deron Meranda

Very odd... fdisk seems to recognise it, but nothing else does:

[root@localhost ~]# ls -l /dev/hda*
brw-rw----  1 root disk 3, 0 Jan 28 02:48 /dev/hda

[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40060403712 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4870 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1        1912    15358108+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2            1913        4870    23760135    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

[root@localhost ~]# cat /proc/partitions
major minor  #blocks  name

3     0   39121488 hda
  22    64   20015856 hdd
  22    65     104391 hdd1
  22    66   19904535 hdd2
 253     0    8585216 dm-0
 253     1    1048576 dm-1

[Tom]

Tom wrote:
> > On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 17:41:57 -0200, Vinicius
>
> wrote:
> > > After the boot in normal mode, at the prompt on a terminal, what the 
> > > command "ls /dev/hda*" shows?
> >
> > Also what's the output from these two commands (must run as root),
> >
> > fdisk -l /dev/hda
> > cat /proc/partitions
> >
> > -- 
> > Deron Meranda
>
> Very odd... fdisk seems to recognise it, but nothing else does:
>
> [root@localhost ~]# ls -l /dev/hda*
> brw-rw----  1 root disk 3, 0 Jan 28 02:48 /dev/hda
>
> [root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l /dev/hda
>
> Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40060403712 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4870 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>
> Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/hda1   *           1        1912    15358108+   7  HPFS/NTFS
> /dev/hda2            1913        4870    23760135    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
>
> [root@localhost ~]# cat /proc/partitions
> major minor  #blocks  name
>
> 3     0   39121488 hda
>  22    64   20015856 hdd
>  22    65     104391 hdd1
>  22    66   19904535 hdd2
> 253     0    8585216 dm-0
> 253     1    1048576 dm-1

Ok, have been playing around a bit and found that by running 'partprobe' 
I can get it to pick up the partitions on /dev/hda.

I think there is a problem with reading the partition table during the 
initial boot, as I get the error message: "Buffer I/O Error on device 
hda, logical block 0", just before it starts redhat nash.

Is there a way of fixing this, or could I include partprobe in the boot 
procedure somehow?

--
Tom

[James Wilkinson]

Tom wrote:
> Ok, have been playing around a bit and found that by running 'partprobe' 
> I can get it to pick up the partitions on /dev/hda.
>
> I think there is a problem with reading the partition table during the 
> initial boot, as I get the error message: "Buffer I/O Error on device 
> hda, logical block 0", just before it starts redhat nash.

Please note that this is one sign of a failing disk. And the partition
table is *precisely* where you do not want a disk to fail.

Please run, as root,
smartctl -H /dev/hda

smartctl -l error /dev/hda

smartctl -t short /dev/hda
which will do a low-level check on the disk: wait a minute for that to
run, then do
# smartctl -l selftest /dev/hda
to see the results.

And make sure that you've got good backups.

James.

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi
> Is there a way of fixing this, or could I include partprobe in the boot
> procedure somehow?

your hard disk is probably going to crash. file a bug in
bugzilla.redhat.com if you are unsure