External Hard Disk does not Mount---Help!

[djross95]

I probably should know how to do this, but I have a Seagate firewire external hard drive that is not mounting when started, nor does it show up when I click on the "computer" icon. This is literally the only thing that did not go well when I installed Cassandra---everything else works like a charm! Hopefully this one problem can be solved.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions and help you can provide! DR

[BlahBlah_X]

Open the file manager and go to /media. Does it appear there? If so, type in "sudo mount /media/whateveritsays

[djross95]

Actually, it doesn't appear there. It shows sda1, which I thought would be it, but it ends up being my Windows partition (which shows up on my desktop as sda1 along with another icon "12GB NTFS Volume (hda1)", which is also my Windows partition---very odd.

Any idea what all this means? Looks like Mint is not seeing my drive at all....

Thanks again, DR

[Boo]

It maybe mintdisk not knowing what to do when a firewire disk is plugged in.

if you do a lsmod can you see the ieee1394 listed?

if you do a mount is the drive listed?

it maybe mounting and just not showing up with a nice drive icon...

[djross95]

The ieee1394 is indeed listed when I type 'lsmod' in the terminal. Not sure what you mean by 'do a mount'.........I'm relatively new to Linux. Could you be more specific? Thanks, and sorry for not understanding the first time! DR

[BlahBlah_X]

What he means you to do is the following:

1. Open a terminal

2. type in "sudo mount /media/ieee1394" or "sudo mount media/sda0

[Husse]

djross95 which kernel do you use?
and what hardware do you have - the chipset of the motherboard comes to mind
The mixed naming as both hda and sda and double appearance on the desktop seems closely related to this:
http://www.linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopi ... ch5&t=2894

[djross95]

BlahBlah_X: I typed both commands, same result: " can't find media/sda0 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab"

Husse: I'm using the latest kernel available through Synaptic--- 2.6.18, I think. The laptop is a 4 year old Sony Vaio, with a PIII processor and Intel integrated graphics. It only has 256 megs of RAM, but seems to run fine otherwise (though not fast, obviously!).

Does any of this point a way to a solution? Thanks, DR

[Husse]

Your problem looked similar to what happens with 2.6.20-16 and Intel ICH5 and 6
Unfortunately I have no experience with firewire (I have a working connector but nothing to connect )

[Lolo Uila]

Well, this looks like as good an excuse as any to test the new Firewire port I wired into my computer recently.

You know you're really lazy when you need an excuse to move an external hard drive across the room to test something.

Oops, the cord doesn't reach. [Yawn] Oh well, I'll test it later...

I know, I'm pathetic.

Anyway... I got off my lazy butt and moved the drive to my tower to try my newly wired front Firewire port, and... it works! So it looks like Firewire works under Cassandra. The drive auto-mounted and appeared on the desktop. I'm watching an episode of Battlestar Galactica off the drive as I type.

Of course this doesn't help you solve your problem. Sorry. But at least we know Cassandra works with external IEEE1394 "Firewire" hard drives (and my new front port works!).

Only thing I can think of at the moment... was the drive connected when you installed Cassandra? If so there may be an fstab entry for it that is preventing Mindisk from mounting it. Mintdisk will not mount anything referenced in the fstab file (even if it is commented out). If there is an entry in fstab for the firewire drive, remove the entry, reboot and try again. If not, then, I dunno...

Good luck!

Aloha, Tim

PS: I can fix the double icons, though. Go to Control Center, System, minDisk and uncheck "Show links for mounted partitions" and restart. You should only have 1 icon per drive now. The reason you get double icons is that mintDesktop and mintDisk are both putting icons on the desktop. It's best to just let mintDesktop handle that.

[djross95]

Tim: The drive may well have been attached, your suggestion is a good one! I'll check that tonight when I get home from work.........

Thanks, DR

[djross95]

Well, it's not in there......... sda 1,5 and 6 are there--my two partitions and the swap file. So much for that theory!

Looks like it's just an idiosyncracy of my machine, I may just have to live with it.

Thanks to all for your help and ideas......... DR