post fedora installation problem

[Elias81]

Hi guys

first of all thank you for welcoming me to the forum. I installed fedora on one of my three hard drives and it seems that something went wrong with the other two .fedora recognises the other drives but it seems the data on those drives is not there anymore. I am a complete newbie to fedora but wanted to give it a shot. The below images are screen shots from my computer folder and disk utility program. Your help is appreciated. I tried to look through Fedora documentation but I did not find a solution to my case.

[glennzo]

I'm sure the data is there. The drives are probably just not mounted in a way that allows you full access or maybe they're not mounted at all. Let's start with some basics. Open a terminal, enter these commands and post the result.

mount
su -c 'fdisk -l'

[Elias81]

thank you glennzo. This is what I get when I enter the command. I'm sort of freaked out that I might have lost all the data.

[root@localhost programs]# su -c 'fdisk -l'

Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 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: 0x4b9f0262

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048     1026047      512000   83  Linux
/dev/sda2         1026048  1953523711   976248832   8e  Linux LVM

Disk /dev/sdb: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 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: 0x803a803a

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *        2048     1026047      512000   83  Linux
/dev/sdb2         1026048   625141759   312057856   8e  Linux LVM

Disk /dev/dm-0: 53.7 GB, 53687091200 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 6527 cylinders, total 104857600 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: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/dm-0 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/dm-1: 9462 MB, 9462349824 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1150 cylinders, total 18481152 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: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/dm-1 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/dm-2: 256.4 GB, 256389414912 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 31170 cylinders, total 500760576 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: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/dm-2 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/sdc: 500.1 GB, 500107860992 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773166 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: 0xad570c3e

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1            2048   976773119   488385536   8e  Linux LVM

[fah]

hi it may be a good choice, depending on what was on the affected HDDs beforehand to try using a partition table recovery tool by disconnecting them from the affected pc + hooking them to one which can serve as a recovery platform. most recovery software will offer some preview function. i suspect u had some windows files on it.
i had a problem with an xp system, where i tried to resize the main xp partition using partition magic. it nuked the partition table, the oc would no longer boot, the filesystem was unreadable. on different machine, actually using a free dos-like command-line tool (the name of which eludes me now), i was able to do a scan and rewrite of just the table. after that the filesystem was intact enough for data recovery, though i could no longer make it bootable, hinting that it was likely misaligned.
but remember to use the PREVIEW, before u commit to the recovery.

[glennzo]

These are all Linux partitions. Were you expecting Windows to be there also?

You never posted the result of the mount command.

[Elias81]

Originally Posted by glennzo

These are all Linux partitions. Were you expecting Windows to be there also?

You never posted the result of the mount command.

Yes because I used only one partition during installation: the dev/sdb one but it seems like its treating all the others as LVM

[root@localhost programs]# mount su -c 'fdisk -l'
mount: invalid option -- 'c'
Usage: mount -V                 : print version
       mount -h                 : print this help
       mount                    : list mounted filesystems
       mount -l                 : idem, including volume labels
So far the informational part. Next the mounting.
The command is `mount [-t fstype] something somewhere'.
Details found in /etc/fstab may be omitted.
       mount -a [-t|-O] ...     : mount all stuff from /etc/fstab
       mount device             : mount device at the known place
       mount directory          : mount known device here
       mount -t type dev dir    : ordinary mount command
Note that one does not really mount a device, one mounts
a filesystem (of the given type) found on the device.
One can also mount an already visible directory tree elsewhere:
       mount --bind olddir newdir
or move a subtree:
       mount --move olddir newdir
One can change the type of mount containing the directory dir:
       mount --make-shared dir
       mount --make-slave dir
       mount --make-private dir
       mount --make-unbindable dir
One can change the type of all the mounts in a mount subtree
containing the directory dir:
       mount --make-rshared dir
       mount --make-rslave dir
       mount --make-rprivate dir
       mount --make-runbindable dir
A device can be given by name, say /dev/hda1 or /dev/cdrom,
or by label, using  -L label  or by uuid, using  -U uuid .
Other options: [-nfFrsvw] [-o options] [-p passwdfd].
For many more details, say  man 8 mount .

[glennzo]

Mount and su -c 'fdisk -l' are two separate commands. Just type mount at the command line. Like so

[glenn@15alpha ~]$ mount
/dev/sda2 on /mnt/fedora14 type ext4 (rw,relatime,seclabel,barrier=1,data=ordered)
/dev/sda1 on /mnt/sl type ext4 (rw,relatime,seclabel,barrier=1,data=ordered)
/dev/sda3 on /tmp type ext4 (rw,relatime,seclabel,barrier=1,data=ordered)
/dev/sda3 on /var/tmp type ext4 (rw,relatime,seclabel,barrier=1,data=ordered)
/dev/sda3 on /home type ext4 (rw,relatime,seclabel,barrier=1,data=ordered)
(rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=500,group_id=500)

The others are alll LVM

[Elias81]

Originally Posted by glennzo

Mount and su -c 'fdisk -l' are two separate commands. Just type mount at the command line. Like so


The others are alll LVM

yes I really dont know where I went wrong. I followed the exact installation process on Fedora's site, never touched the other drives.

[root@localhost programs]# mount
/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root on / type ext4 (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,rootcontext="system_u:object_r:tmpfs_t:s0")
/dev/sdb1 on /boot type ext4 (rw)
/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_home on /home type ext4 (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/samer/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=samer)
/dev/sr0 on /media/Fedora-14-x86_64-Live-Desktop type iso9660 (ro,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=500,gid=500,iocharset=utf8,mode=0400,dmode=0500)
/dev/sda1 on /media/f8762047-d5da-42af-b6d5-44e6935101a0 type ext4 (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks)

[glennzo]

So to clarify, Windows was installed on this computer before you installed Fedora? Were all of the drives formatted for Windows, i.e., NTFS?

I see three hard disks attached to the computer. /dev/sda, dev/sdb (Where Fedora appears to reside) and /dev/sdc.

[Elias81]

Originally Posted by glennzo

So to clarify, Windows was installed on this computer before you installed Fedora? Were all of the drives formatted for Windows, i.e., NTFS?

yes they were, is that game over? I cant check if windows can still recognise them because I uninstalled windows after installing linux.

[glennzo]

Yeah. This probably isn't going to work out the way you anticipated. What's on /dev/sda1? That looks to be mounted. You should be able to browse it with Nautilus. If not, type ls /media/f8<tab> That means to type ls /media/f8 and press the tab key for command line completion. The system should fill in the rest for you. Then press enter. The command should look like the following: ls //media/f8762047-d5da-42af-b6d5-44e6935101a0. The command will list all files and folders on /dev/sda1.

To mount your other drive do the following:

su -
<password>
mkdir /mnt/disk3
mount -t ext4 /dev/sda3 /mnt/disk3

That disk should mount without error and should also be browseable.

[Elias81]

Originally Posted by glennzo

Yeah. This probably isn't going to work out the way you anticipated. What's on /dev/sda1? That looks to be mounted. You should be able to browse it with Nautilus. If not, type ls /media/f8<tab> That means to type ls /media/f8 and press the tab key for command line completion. The system should fill in the rest for you. Then press enter. The command should look like the following: ls //media/f8762047-d5da-42af-b6d5-44e6935101a0. The command will list all files and folders on /dev/sda1.

To mount your other drive do the following:

su -
<password>
mkdir /mnt/disk3
mount -t ext4 /dev/sda3 /mnt/disk3

That disk should mount without error and should also be browseable.

I did that and it lists only the lost and found folder. I guess Im screwed then. Im lucky i have a backup of my work files, but all my media is gone. Do I have to format those drives in order to use them in fedora? It seems that I cant use it for data storage. Thank you for your help glennzo.

[glennzo]

I made an error above. The mount command should be mount -t ext4 /dev/sdc1 /mnt/disk3. I typed /dev/sda3 !!!
We want to mount the third disk (/dev/sdc)m not the third partition on the first disk (/dev/sda3). Sorry.

umount /mnt/disk3
mount -t ext4 /dev/sdc1 /mnt/disk3

[Elias81]

The sdc drive was actually my external drive. It is the only drive that is not mounting and not showing up when I open my computer, though it is recognised in the disk utility management. I am thinking of buying an internal hard drive and installing windows on it to try to recover some data at least from the external drive, is that a good idea?

[root@localhost mnt]# mkdir /mnt/disk3
[root@localhost mnt]# umount /mnt/disk3
umount: /mnt/disk3: not mounted
[root@localhost mnt]# mount -t ext4 /dev/sdc1 /mnt/disk3
mount: /dev/sdc1 already mounted or /mnt/disk3 busy

[glennzo]

You've already a ton of disk space. Why not start over? Install Windows and then install Fedora on the same hard disk. Of course, create some partitions first. 50GB for Windows, 50GB for Fedora. Leave the rest of the space alone for now. Install Windows on the first partition then install Fedora on the second partition. Get the 2 working harmoniously and then worry about the other disks. Leave the external disk unplugged for the duration. For that matter, you could probably disconnect the second disk too.