[CS-FSLUG] Hard drive won't format - or maybe stay formatted.

[davidm at hisfeet.net]

Below (marked by: ****++++****++++) is the procedure that I went through,
working from Puppy 5 in the CDrom. As you can see at the end the disk does
seem to be properly formatted as ext3 /dev/sda1.  But I could not mount
the disk.  When I tried I got a message that said I must identify the type
of disk, SI tried that, and got the message that it could not mount
because it could not be found in fstab or mtab.  Working in puppu I
couldn't figure out how to find fstab or modify it. The structure seems
quite different.

I checked with gparted to see how it saw the disk, and it identified it as
sda1, but unknown file type, and only 232 GiB in size. I did not attempt
to modify it in gparted.

Then I rebooted and checked it with fdisk -l again, and it appeared to
have retained it's format. But I still could not mount it.  I did find
fstab and entered a line for sda1: " /dev/sda1  /mnt/sda1  ext2,ext3  
noauto  0  0 " and a dir as /mnt/sda1 but still could not mount, even
after another reboot.

Here is the message I got, together with the dmesg | tail:
# ls
cdrom  data  dvd  flash  floppy  home  msdos  ram1  sda1  swap  zip
# mount /mnt/sda1
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda1,
       missing codepage or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

# dmesg | tail
mac80211-phy0: failed to remove key (0, 00:24:7b:62:86:e2) from hardware
(-22)
wlan0: direct probe to AP 00:24:7b:62:86:e2 (try 1)
wlan0: direct probe responded
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:24:7b:62:86:e2 (try 1)
wlan0: authenticated
wlan0: associate with AP 00:24:7b:62:86:e2 (try 1)
wlan0: RX AssocResp from 00:24:7b:62:86:e2 (capab=0x411 status=0 aid=1)
wlan0: associated
EXT2-fs (sda1): error: can't find an ext2 filesystem on dev sda1.
EXT3-fs (sda1): error: can't find ext3 filesystem on dev sda1.
#
So it appears that in spite of the last few lines on this page that the
format may not be recognizable.



****++++****++++
# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Disk /dev/sda doesn't contain a valid partition table
# fdisk /dev/sda
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF
disklabel
Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
content won't be recoverable.


The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 30401.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by
w(rite)

******************8

Command (m for help): W
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
# p
bash: p: command not found
# fdisk /dev/sda

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 30401.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System

**********************************
Command (m for help): n
Command action
   e   extended
   p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-30401, default 1):
Using default value 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-30401, default 30401):
Using default value 30401

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1       30401   244196001   83  Linux

Command (m for help): W
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
# p
bash: p: command not found
# fdisk /dev/sda

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 30401.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1       30401   244196001   83  Linux