Mount external ide HD problems

[joegumbo]

Hello,

My Slackware system died (likely mobo problems), so I saved the IDE HD, put it in a Sabrent ECS-STU35K Hard Drive Enlcosure - 3.5" IDE/SATA to USB 2.0, eSATA (M501-1196), and I'm now trying to mount it from my Fedora 10 laptop. (Fedora 10 32-bit fully updated Gnome) I did do a little Googling as well as trying the things I know, but I still cannot seem to mount it.

Unlike other media, when I plug the drive into a USB port, no icon appears.

fdisk -l only shows the partitions on my internal HD, not the external IDE drive.

[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x39633962

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 26 204800 83 Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 2551 3060 4096575 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3 3061 14593 92638822+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 27 2550 20274030 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 27 2538 20172800 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

I've tried manually mounting using commands like 'mount -t xfs /dev/sdb4 /mnt' only to be informed that 'mount: special device /dev/sdb4 does not exist'

When I try to mount under /dev/hda4 or /dev/hdb4 or some other variant, I'm notified 'mount: can't find /dev/hda4 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab'

'lsusb' outputs:

[root@localhost ~]# lsusb
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 152d:2338 JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp. JM20337 Hi-Speed USB to SATA & PATA Combo Bridge
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 002: ID 03f0:5511 Hewlett-Packard Deskjet F300 series
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

But......
If I go to "my Computer" on the desktop, "USB Drive" with icon will appear. When I Right Click > Mount Volume, I receive no feedback. When I click on the icon, I receive a message "Unable to mount ,ocation Can't mount file". Properties shows "Location: computer:///"

When I browse to /media and /mnt, both directories are empty.

dmesg | tail gave the following when I plug the device into the USB port:

[root@localhost ~]# dmesg | tail
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
usb 2-6: New USB device found, idVendor=152d, idProduct=2338
usb 2-6: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=5
usb 2-6: Product: USB to ATA/ATAPI Bridge
usb 2-6: Manufacturer: JMicron
usb 2-6: SerialNumber: 152D203380B6
usb-storage: device scan complete
scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 CCS
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
sd 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0

I'm not sure what to try next.

Btw, I also had no luck using Knoppix.

Thank you
-Joe

[jpollard]

try doing a "cat /proc/partitions" and see what it says while your disk is plugged in.
It should have a list of all partitions of the internal disk and the external.

I've done the same thing, but have had no problems (my disk is an old Quantum
Fireball SE).

[joegumbo]

Hi jpollard

Thanks for the help

This is the output:

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

8 0 117220824 sda
8 1 204800 sda1
8 2 4096575 sda2
8 3 92638822 sda3
8 4 1 sda4
8 5 20172800 sda5
[root@localhost ~]#

Same as before... no other disk.

[joegumbo]

I went back in and tried the following:

[root@localhost ~]# mount -t xfs /dev/sdb /mnt -o force
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
(could this be the IDE device where you in fact use
ide-scsi so that sr0 or sda or so is needed?)
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so

[root@localhost ~]# mount -t xfs /dev/sdb4 /mnt -o force
mount: special device /dev/sdb4 does not exist
[root@localhost ~]# mount /dev/sr0 /mnt
mount: you must specify the filesystem type
[root@localhost ~]# mount -t xfs /dev/sr0 /mnt
mount: No medium found
[root@localhost ~]# mount -t xfs /dev/sdb* /mnt
mount: /dev/sdb: can't read superblock

So, at least it is finding /dev/sdb*

This drive has (had?) 4 partitions in the SW desktop...
hda1 ext3 /boot
hda2 ext3 /
hda3 swap
hda4 xfs /home

I did try reinstalling SW before I realized that I had a HW issue. I reformatted hda1, hda2, and hda3. But, not hda4.
When reformatting, the process was interrupted by a hardware issues ( referencing IRQ errors)

Is there a way to recreate a superblock on sdb? Obviously, I don't care about the data on the first 3 partitions. But, if possible, I'd like to save the data on partition 4. These are (were) all primary partitions.

Thanks,
-Joe

[stevea]

sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk

It's /dev/sdb, but it doesn't see the partition table.

[jpollard]

You can try testdisk to see if it can find/rebuild the partition table.

If you happen to know what the partition table was you CAN set it to that value
without damaging anything but the boot block (MBR) of the disk... And I'm not
certain even it will be damaged. The disk I did that on was a data disk.

But I have done that and recovered from a bad partition.

[joegumbo]

'testdisk' is only finding /dev/sda.

[root@localhost ~]# testdisk /list
TestDisk 6.11, Data Recovery Utility, April 2009
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org
Please wait...
Disk /dev/sda - 120 GB / 111 GiB - CHS 14593 255 63, sector size=512

Disk /dev/sda - 120 GB / 111 GiB - CHS 14593 255 63
Partition Start End Size in sectors
1 * Linux 0 1 1 25 127 37 409600 [/boot]
2 P Linux Swap 2550 0 1 3059 254 63 8193150
3 P Linux 3060 0 1 14592 254 63 185277645 [/home]
4 E extended 26 0 1 2549 254 63 40548060
5 L Linux 26 1 1 2537 102 22 40345600 [/]
[root@localhost ~]#

Thanks anyhow. Maybe the HD was damaged somehow.

[jpollard]

Do you know the sizes of the partitions before it was damaged?
Were they part of a logical volume?
Or managed by a raid controller (which may have re-arranged things for itself, which is preventing the
partition table from being found...)?

[joegumbo]

The hd is just from my little desktop system at home (eMachine W3503). Nothing fancy... one hd. It had 4 primary partitions. Unfortunately, I don't remember their sizes.