2nd Hard drive

Linux Support
1

Hi All - I came across an old 40GB HDD when having a spring clean and thought it might come in useful as extra storage. 2 issues…

1 The 2nd HDD is fitted but I can’t access the files. The system ‘sees’ it (/dev/sdb) but I can’t find a way to mount it. Any ideas, please?

2 The ribbon cable can only cope with 2 drives and I have only 1 connection on the motherboard (Foxconn 945 7MC series) so I can connect the 2nd HDD only at the expense of the Optical Drive. Are there ribbon cables available that will accommodate 3 drives from 1 outlet? (There is a floppy connector but it is a different size to the HDD connector).

Linux Mint 13 KDE 2GB RAM

Thanks in advance

Rich

2

There are no ribbon cables with 3 connectors … it’s a function of IDE specification that the bus itself only supports 2 drives per channel … a master and a slave.

Anything else would need to be connected via the SATA sockets … but obviously that would require SATA drives.

Your only other option would be to bung the 40Gb IDE drive in an external USB HDD enclosure.

[EDIT]

Or a SATA ↔ IDE converter, like this:

Can’t say I’ve ever tried one of these, and it would probably be just as cheap to buy an SATA DVD drive.

[END EDIT]

Mounting the drive -

Can you post the output from:

sudo fdisk -l

and

sudo blkid

and just for fun:

mount
3

Hi Mark! As requested -

$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0007c372

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 976895 487424 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 978942 312580095 155800577 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 978944 20508671 9764864 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 20510720 28321791 3905536 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 28323840 140058899 55867530 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 223635456 312580095 44472320 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 140060672 223625215 41782272 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders, total 78165360 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x09ae09ad

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 20482874 10241406 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2 20482875 78156224 28836675 f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sdb5 20482938 78156224 28836643+ b W95 FAT32

sudo blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID=“3cfce3c0-00db-4e23-ab2f-5f11249a7575” TYPE=“ext4”
/dev/sda5: UUID=“23169251-61bc-44a2-8731-9fb01dcc425d” TYPE=“ext4”
/dev/sda6: UUID=“3c69d8d2-7142-4931-a324-628f0d6edc4b” TYPE=“swap”
/dev/sda7: UUID=“a1785252-0966-49e7-901b-1bd561203788” TYPE=“ext4”
/dev/sda8: UUID=“0a77f7a3-c800-4bf9-b095-e39849dbba76” TYPE=“ext4”
/dev/sda9: UUID=“53b7cf2f-f895-4ff1-9ca0-f631f5878fab” TYPE=“ext4”
/dev/sdb1: UUID=“2CD80615D805DDC8” TYPE=“ntfs”
/dev/sdb5: UUID=“124B-15FD” TYPE=“vfat”

$ mount
/dev/sda9 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755)
none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880)
none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)

I suppose it’s a bit academic really - if the mobo doesn’t support another drive, I have to choose between an Optical or a Slave!! It would be good to see what’s on the 2nd HDD though… I think it might be XP Pro… but I could always wipe it and keep it in reserve in case my main HDD goes kaput!

Rich

4

Read my last posting again … I added some bits to it.

You CAN add an optical drive (or other HDD’s) … but they would need to be connected via the SATA sockets.

Which distro/version are you running ?

5

Thanks Mark - duly noted - I’ll have a ‘google’!

Mint 13 KDE 2GB RAM

6

If you just wanna see what’s on them

Doesn’t the KDE file manager allow you to just click on the drive in the left hand panel to mount it ?

If not, the drive contains 2 usable partitions

/dev/sdb1 which is an NTFS partition
and
/dev/sdb5 which is a FAT/32 partition

so let’s manually mount them (this will not survive a reboot)

First create 2 mount points in /media

sudo mkdir /media/ntfs-partition

and

sudo mkdir /media/fat-partition

Now to mount them

sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb1 /media/ntfs-partition

and

sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdb5 /media/fat-partition

Are they now available in your file manager at
/media/ntfs-partition
and
/media/fat-partition
?

7

[quote author=Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec) link=topic=11564.msg93116#msg93116 date=1396027044]
If you just wanna see what’s on them

Doesn’t the KDE file manager allow you to just click on the drive in the left hand panel to mount it ?[quote]

Mark, the drive doesn’t appear anywhere in the left hand panel… The 2 new directories do appear in file manager but there is nothing relevant in the files - just some Windows system stuff and a few default bits and pieces.

I’d like to format the drive and make it available for storage but without it being ‘seen’ by File Manager, how do I accomplish that? Bearing in mind I don’t want to format my main drive…!!!

Cheers

Rich

8

Install and use gparted to format the drive. (be careful to select sdb)

if you need help … just ask :slight_smile: