3rd IDE hard disk drive is not 'seen'

**JohnnyH** · 02-26-2003, 03:37 PM

I have 3 IDE hard drives, but only 2 (hda and hdb) are 'seen' by the system.
The CDROM is 'slave' in the 'hdd' position.
There is not a hardware problem, as all my other distros (Caldera, Mandrake, RedHat, Slackware) 'see' and install to, or mount, hdc partitions as normal.
The problem is the same, whether running Knoppix from the CD, or with Knoppix installed on hard disk hda. The console error message when trying to mount an hdc partition is e.g :-

root@dads_pc:/home/dad# mount -t ext2 /dev/hdc9 /mnt/hdc9
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hdc9,
or too many mounted file systems
(could this be the IDE device where you in fact use
ide-scsi so that sr0 or sda or so is needed?)

(hdc9 is a good ext2 partition for all the other distros!)

Can anybody suggest what needs to be done ?
Anyway, Knoppix is really impressive !

**roberto** · 03-03-2003, 08:00 AM

try leaving off the -t ext2 option. also make sure that you have created the proper directory:

i.e.

mkdir /mnt/hdc9

before trying to mount to it. F.Y.I. it has been my experience that one can only have a maximum of 8 partitions on a single hard drive and at most 4 primary partitions. why in the world would someone need 3 hard drives and at least one is broken into 9 partitions?????? either you have weird storage needs or there is some pointless partitioning goin' on! write back and let me know if it gets fixed or you need more options

toast

**Stephen** · 03-03-2003, 09:34 AM

It's not 9 partitions it's only six. For instance my hda has 7 partitions hda1=win c:, hda5=win d:, hda6=/swap, hda7=/boot, hda8=/, hda9=/usr, hda10=/home. The hda1 is the primary partition all the rest are in a extended partition as logical drives and they start getting numbered at 5.

**JohnnyH** · 03-03-2003, 12:13 PM

Thanks for the replies.
Yes, I've done mkdir, and with and without explicit -t ext2.
Why so many distros & discs/partitions? "...let a thousand flowers bloom...". One of the joys of GNU/Linux is choice, to see which I like best for whatever application.
For various reasons I have W-98, W-NT and DOS on the PC as well (flame-bait, any-one?!) and keeping my 'older' discs gives more flexibility for their installation constraints, and places to put /boot partitions below the 1024 cylinder limits, etc.
I had only wondered whether knoppix has been 'customised' in some way, so that unlike all other distros I've found it does not 'see' hdc.
JohnnyH

**roberto** · 03-04-2003, 07:36 PM

well, ok i forgot momentarily about the structure for extended partitions

. anyways... correct the choices are fabulous in the world of open source... it has been my experience that knoppix handles drive letters pretty well. on my machine at home i have 2 20GB western digital drives (primary master and slave) and 2 20GB scsi drives (adaptech scsi controller) on my secondary ide i have an atapi 52x cd-rom and for the slave a creative labs 8x4x32 cd-rw (i know, i know, the creatives are pieces of crap) all goes well other than that my creative only burns at 4x now (because of age). knoppix has not had any issues with drive assignments as i also, on the same machine, have a USB LS-240 SuperDisk Drive, a USB 128Mb Universal Smart Drive, and occasionally a USB floppy disk drive. You can see that i do not have a hard disk as HDC but i would imagine that if it can handle all of the other equipment that it should be able to handle a HDC device... I do have an extra disk at home.. i think i might try hooking it up sometime to see if i get the same issue... ttyl

toast

**Dave_Bechtel** · 03-10-2003, 07:40 AM

--Post results of ' fdisk -l '... Also make sure the drive is connected properly. If you can see it from other distros then I'd be baffled.

Originally Posted by JohnnyH

Thanks for the replies.
Yes, I've done mkdir, and with and without explicit -t ext2.
Why so many distros & discs/partitions? "...let a thousand flowers bloom...". One of the joys of GNU/Linux is choice, to see which I like best for whatever application.
For various reasons I have W-98, W-NT and DOS on the PC as well (flame-bait, any-one?!) and keeping my 'older' discs gives more flexibility for their installation constraints, and places to put /boot partitions below the 1024 cylinder limits, etc.
I had only wondered whether knoppix has been 'customised' in some way, so that unlike all other distros I've found it does not 'see' hdc.
JohnnyH

**JohnnyH** · 03-10-2003, 06:26 PM

Doing fdisk -l tells the same story.
Running it in Knoppix reports the hda and hdb partition tables correctly, but reports nothing for hdc.
Whereas running fdisk -l in e.g. Red Hat or Mandrake reports all the hda, hdb, and hdc tables.
(As an aside; Mandrake and Red Hat fdisk use different device terminology:-
- Red Hat uses /dev/hd[a or b or c]<number>
- Mandrake uses /dev/ide/host0/bus[0 or 1]/target[0 or 1]/lun0/part<number> ).
Incidentally, I have Partition Magic, and this reports No Errors for all drives.
Ho hum, I'll carry on investigating.

Thanks for the response

.

**JohnnyH** · 03-14-2003, 12:36 PM

Now here's a funny thing!
I changed my 3rd IDE hard drive to a larger one, and Knoppix now 'sees' it. The evident difference is that :-

* The original was 6.8 GB (< 8GB) and was managed by the BIOS in NORMAL Mode. For this disk, Red Hat or Mandrake fdisk reported the Extended partition type as "Id: 5, System: Extended". This was the disk that Knoppix did not 'see'.

* The new disk is 40GB, and is managed by the BIOS in LBA Mode(like my hda and hdb). Knoppix 'sees' this disk, and Knoppix (and Red Hat etc) fdisk report the Extended partition type as "Id: f, System: Win95 Ext'd (LBA)"

This is not directly an explanation, but it may provide a CLUE to anybody who has deeper knowledge, than myself, of the system!
Any explanation would be interesting; meanwhile I'm happy that I can now use Knoppix system-wide

.

**Dave_Bechtel** · 03-15-2003, 08:06 AM

--Good to know. Did you manage to get all the data copied off the 6.8?

Originally Posted by JohnnyH

Now here's a funny thing!
I changed my 3rd IDE hard drive to a larger one, and Knoppix now 'sees' it. The evident difference is that :-

* The original was 6.8 GB (< 8GB) and was managed by the BIOS in NORMAL Mode. For this disk, Red Hat or Mandrake fdisk reported the Extended partition type as "Id: 5, System: Extended". This was the disk that Knoppix did not 'see'.

* The new disk is 40GB, and is managed by the BIOS in LBA Mode(like my hda and hdb). Knoppix 'sees' this disk, and Knoppix (and Red Hat etc) fdisk report the Extended partition type as "Id: f, System: Win95 Ext'd (LBA)"

This is not directly an explanation, but it may provide a CLUE to anybody who has deeper knowledge, than myself, of the system!
Any explanation would be interesting; meanwhile I'm happy that I can now use Knoppix system-wide

.

**JohnnyH** · 03-15-2003, 01:23 PM

[quote="Dave_Bechtel"]--Good to know. Did you manage to get all the data copied off the 6.8?

Yes thanks; it was all accessible to my other OSes anyway. ( I now reckon that the 6.8 would have worked in position hdc for Knoppix if I had changed the BIOS to manage it in LBA mode. However it has gone to a good home; I've used it in a PC that I have built for my daughter.)
BTW this has reminded me what a pain in the **** W98 is to install compared to most Linux distros.