[CS-FSLUG] Hard drive won't format - or maybe stay formatted.
davidm at hisfeet.net
davidm at hisfeet.net
Sat Aug 7 19:08:36 CDT 2010
Thanks for being patient with me, and plain and simple. Tese directions
coupled with your previous directions about mounting the disk and leaving
a message, and the rebooting to read it worked. So lookslike the disk
itself may be OK. Here's the reading from fdisk -l on that disk now (after
several reboots. and the message is readable):
# fdisk -l
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
Bur Gparted still sees it as 238.88 GiB. That seems like a big difference
to me. And I'm wondering what to do next toward the notion of actually
installing a distro on it. And wondering why the trouble in the first
place and if there's a probability of it going bad again, or if there are
preventive measures I should take.
> Hi there,
> fdisk does not format a drive, it only partitions it.
> Before you can mount it, you need to use mke2fs to format the drive
> man mke2fs
>
> the command will be:
> mke2fs -j /dev/sda1
>
> The "p" option at the end says that the partition is prepared to be a
> linux filesystem, but it does not mean that the partition has been
> formatted as such.
>
> - Tim
>
> On 8/7/2010 1:17 AM, davidm at hisfeet.net wrote:
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
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