Second Hard Drive Missing

[r1bby]

Afternoon folks,
I have two hard drives wired up in my desktop one has 32bit main Mint, the other has XFCE,
I select which one I want to use in the BIOS as I set them both up as main HDD's and not shared.

When I'm in the main edition I can see my second hard drive and read/write to it,
when I'm in XFCE there is no second hard drive, my question is how do I read/write to it?

Thanks for your help
Regards,
Rob

[ham5]

edit the /etc/fstab file so it mounts on bootup, compareing your 2 should get you on the right track.

[r1bby]

OK thanks, I'll give that a whirl tonight and post the outcome.

[r1bby]

I tried it out and Mint wouldn't let me edit the files for some unknown reason...
Still not to worry, I have copied everything across from Mint32 to Mint XFCE that I needed.

Next project is to try Mint 64

[AK Dave]

Code: Select all

gksu gedit /etc/fstab

The files are locked to root. You need su or sudo to access them. The gnome version of sudo is gksu. This is why you couldn't edit the files.

[r1bby]

OK I had to make a small change to edit the file in XFCE

gksu xedit /etc/fstab

The X is for XFCE version which I am using I can edit the file now and this is what I see:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# /dev/sda1
UUID=c5cf490e-93ff-4ed2-bdd8-050b73104cc6 / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /dev/sda5
UUID=18bbafd3-9f3d-4d01-8dff-5d2e94d94a87 / swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0

I think sda1 is my spare HDD as this is the one connected to my PATA cable with the DVD-ROM
sda5 is my main HDD as this is connected to SATA #5 socket
and scd0 is my CD ROM obviously

So I changed the file to read this:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# /dev/sda1
UUID=c5cf490e-93ff-4ed2-bdd8-050b73104cc6 / swap sw 0 0
# /dev/sda5
UUID=18bbafd3-9f3d-4d01-8dff-5d2e94d94a87 / swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0


I will shut down and restart to see if it has resolved it.....

[r1bby]

That buggered it, I've lost my XFCE log in, Mint loads up then just before the GUI finishes & loads,
it then comes up with a screen saying X has failed to load and leaves me at the cursor,
so I need to sort it out, damn!!!

[r1bby]

Right, I have 2 HDD's, the first has Mint 5 XFCE, the second has Debian 5
I want to delete Debian and use it as a second blank HDD to the XFCE
XFCE could not see the HDD so I tried editing the fstab as discussed previously
and now it doesn;'t load XFCE it stops just before and says:
"Could not start the X server (your graphical environment) due to some internal error blah blah blah click OK"
which then leads me the the terminal screen and I have to shut down
I have loaded into safe mode and run all the variants and it still comes up with this issue
so the only way I can see is to go into Debian (which sees the XFCE HDD) and edit the fstab back on the HDD back to what it said earlier and start again,
trouble is I cannot access the XFCE HDD it says: "Cannot mount volume. You are not priviledged to mount this drive, OK"
so I guess I need to go into the terminal and update my priviledge, which is where I am stuck as the previous thing didn't work so I have no idea where to go now...
And all I wanted to do was add the second HDD to my PC, save my files, then update to the newer version of mint
All the help I can get will be greatly appreciated, thanks!
Regards,
Rob

[merlwiz79]

I would use the Live cd to mount XFCE and fix fstab.
You made the root a swap partition so that's why it doesn't work anymore.
You can also use the live cd to add the second hard drive to fstab.

[r1bby]

OK I after repairing my GRUB I am back to this place,
I have a copy of the live disc, how do I repair my fstab so that Mint loads and it repairs the X server error?
Thanks...

[r1bby]

Right I have managed to get into my terminal using the live CD mode and enter my HDD
I typed:
sudo fdisk -l
to find out my hard drive details (sda1), then typed:
sudo mkdir /mnt/sda1
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
sudo chroot /mnt/sda1

this loaded my terminal from live cd mode (green mint@mint on the terminal) to mint on my HDD (red mint on the terminal)

I then typed: (xedit as I'm using XFCE, gedit if you're using Gnome - I think?)
gksu xedit /etc/fstab
and instead of loading the fstab so I could edit it back to the way it should be, this error message came up:
(gksu:22776): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0.0

typing:
sudo gksu xedit /etc/fstab
gives me this error message instead:
sudo: unable to resolve host mint
(gksu:24156): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0.0

Where do I go from here?

pico /etc/fstab

loads the fstab in the terminal, I've edited the working back to what it said previously, let me shut down & restart to see if it worked...

[kjdixo]

r1bby
I am not technical enough with grub and fstab to get involved in discussing those subjects, but I use what works for me.
From a clean install, install MountManager 0.2.4.
I have two computers with 3.5" SATA drive caddies and have no problems (whilst powered down) swapping drives and mounting them.
Hope this helps.
Kevin Dixon.

[r1bby]

Kevin, Alas that is what I want to avoid, all my files are still on the HDD nice and safely, I can see them if I look through the terminal mode while running the live CD, so all I want to do is restore/update/replace (not sure which one here) the X Server part that is not working on the OS loading.

I've resolved the GRUB issue, it's just this damn X Server issue I'm having, resolving the fdisk issue has not fixed the OS, if I run the OS it stops telling me:

Could not start the X
server (your graphical environment)
due to some internal error
Please contact your system administrator
or check your syslog to diagnose.
In the meantime this display will be
disabled. Please restart GDM when
the problem is corrected
OK

If I run the recovery mode, the dpkg loads OK but the xfix - try to fix X server doesn't,
it comes up with this message:
cp:cannot create regular file 'etx/X11.xorg.conf.20090606115807' read-only file system

This is where I am now stuck, it should be just a case of replacing/editing the affected files on my HDD with the working files on my live CD, I think... can anyone help here? Thanks! )

[kjdixo]

r1bby
If you are worried about losing precious personal data from your HDD, there must be a way to clone the HDD (in windows and NTFS you would use Acronis).
I don't know which tool you would use in Linux. I will try to find out.
Once you are confident that you have an identical clone that is a drop in replacement for your existing HDD and appears to behave identically, problems and all, then you can experiment without worrying. Make two clones if you want.
Seeing as you have already tried lots of solutions your system might have reached the broken forever (or very difficult to fix) stage and a fresh install would be the most sensible course of action.

Cloning is safe if you know what you are doing. You could practice on another pc using some other HDDs.
I have used HDD cloning in windows to put brand new hard drives into computers.
I was amazed how everything booted and worked as if nothing had happened.
The hard drive capacity was multiplied 10 times and it was much, much quieter.
Sorry if these points have already been considered.
I think alternative options are always worth considering.
So no specific technical solution at the moment, only optimistic lateral logic, eg stand back and rethink.
Kevin Dixon

[kjdixo]

r1bby
http://www.partimage.org might be the program to use, to clone your valuable data.
It is listed in Synaptic Package Manager in Linux Mint.
A documentation package full of html files is also available.
Kevin Dixon

[Fred]

r1bby,

Just scanning through this thread it appears to me that your problems probably still reside in your fstab files, your UUIDs and your grub configs.

Install both your hard drives and set your BIOS the way you want it and leave it that way. Post a screen shot of the partition table for each drive from gparted, which can be found in your live cd menu. It is a partitioning program. Also post a copy of /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/menu.lst for each of your Mint installs. I know you have already done some of this but I don't know what has changed since then.

If you will do this I will be happy to take a look at it for you.

Fred