Hi all

Happy new year to everyone, this is my first post but these forums have been so helpful in the past, so many thanks are overdue!

Ive been dabbling with Redhat and Fedora for a few years but never really got past setting it up as a web server that I just leave running in the corner. A few months ago I took the plunge and switched my main workstation to Fedora Core 6

All was well until either something I did or an update really messed it up (it just got me to a plain text login screen). I decided to re install the lot onto a 2nd harddrive.

I unplugged hda and installed onto hdc. Everything worked well and the setup is really sweet now, just how I like it. OK, next stage, get the old data from hda.

When I plug hda back in, I boot to the text login, make a mount point and do this:-
mount /dev/hdc2 /mnt/hd2

Which gives me the following errors:-
hfs: unable to find HFS+ superblock
mount: you must specify the filesystem type

What am I doing wrong? I have been able to copy some of the data with a USB pen drive but the thought of copying 40gb worth of data via a 512mb pen isnt good! I may resort to using my 60gb ipod as an external hard drive but there must be an easier way!

Help!

Phil

Id check your /etc/fstab, hfs+ is an apple file system.

I dunno what filesystem your using but probably in fstab should say something like:
/dev/hdc2 /mnt/hd2 ext3 defaults 0 1

changing ext3 to whatever filesystem you use.

Yeah, but why will the 2nd hard drive boot perfectly Ok when I unplug the first drive?

With two HDs plugges in I get the error, with one, I dont?

Phil

If you are using a Windows partitioning scheme (one primary and some extended partitions), chances are you cannot boot an operating system on a second or third hard drive etc. You can only boot an operating system on the first (primary) hard drive. Which is why everything works when using just one HDD. When you enable the original first HDD........you can't boot from the second.

Correct me if I'm wrong,
Ps: got a couple + beers in me so take my reply with a grain of salt!

phipper

If you want to see how to install a lot of operating systems and multiple drives, you might try saikee's advice at http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=147959

Or of course just email him ...

Thanks for the replies guys, (and the link)

I did state in my original post that it was two fedora installations.

Ive managed to transfer the files using my wifes 60gb ipod, so Im going to close this thread.

Im then going to put XP onto the first HD and see if it will play ball as a dual boot.

Phil

Make a grub boot disk before you do that. Windows will overwrite the MBR of the 1st drive, and it won't give you and easy way of booting linux. With a grub floppy made, with the floppy in you boot to fedora, and with it out you boot to windows.

By the way, all you were missing in the mount command was the filesystem type. If you had done, you probably would have been fine. With no filesystem specified, the mount command won't be happy. Use the man pages "man mount" would have shown you that easily.

Peace,
JimBass

I think it would be useful for any user installing a stand-alone Linux by removing the other disk to know that there will be a record kept for the installation being in the first bootable disk. When a second disk is hooked back the disk order could be messed up.

We could only comment on the problem if we know what hdc2 partition is. For that we need to see the output of "fdisk -l".

The title is a bit misleading as it implies putting Fedora Core 6 in the second disk can cause a problem but it doesn't. I have FC2 to FC6 spreading between 4 disks.

On the filing type at time of mounting modern Linux knows the filing types without being specified. That is certainly the case with all Linux filing systems and even all MS partition type but ntfs is not supported out of the box and needs module "ntfs-3g" to be "yum" in. When a Linux needs to ask the filing type it is usually the case that the filing system cannot be recognised.

My guess of hdc2 is that it could be a LVM which I don't use but I suspect it might need a different command for mouting it. That is the precise reason why I have stayed away from it.

That is true, mounting a LVM is not as straight forward. There are advantages to the LVM, including the ability to easily resize partitions, and to add additional space with the addition of a new drive.

I have this link in my bookmarks from when I had /home spread as a LVM across 2 X 250 Gb satas. It is geared to knoppix/debian, but the commands to activate and mount the LVM are all here - http://www.knoppix.net/wikinew/index.php?title=LVM2

That is yet another reason I dislike the Fedora/rpm series of distros. Sticking folks new to *nix with LVM just makes recovering data really tough, at least much tougher than straight standard partitions. With all the GUI installers, I would think they could have a one page descriptor that says, LVM is good because A,B, and C, but bad because of X,Y, and Z. Do you want to use LVM? For*nix pros, the descriptor page is unnecessary, but few newbies know what it is, and how can can mess you up.

Peace,
JimBass

JimBass,

I would forgive Fedora not doing that because Fedora/Red Hat's strength is for server applications and LVM could have its place there.

It is just the newbies wanting a Linux because of its popularity and don't care much about how easy and standardised it is relative to the others. To me if one chooses it one lives with it.

May be others are not aware but a Red Hat alsways want 2 partitions minimum; one as /boot and the other as a LVM. The reason is because no boot loader can read a LVM. Therefore to avoid LVM all one needs to do is to give the installer of Fedora/Red Hat distro "one" partition to mount its "/". Then everything will be installed in a single partition including /boot and no LVM can exist.

A Linux in a single partition is a lot easy to maintain, to boot, to resize, to be rescued, to mount, to migrate....