Thorny wrote:
Thorny, I know what you're asking, I just wasn't clear. But yes, the partitionOn Wed, 08 Apr 2009 07:38:26 -0700, tony mollica posted:Tony, I think you missed my point. In order for there to be three usableThorny wrote:On Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:29:16 -0700, tony mollica posted:Hello. Need a little help with a disk drive. Until today, my external storage drive was working fine using Debian 4.0 (latest updates) and ext2 file system. It's a 180Gig drive divided into 3 partitions, 1 primary and 2 logical, sdg1, sdg5 and sdg6, for example. I did two things, after which the drive acts unusual. It powers up but takes a few minutes, then automounts only the third partition(sdg6). I can mount the second partition manually(sdg5), but the first, and only, primary partiton(sdg1) isn't found. cfdisk shows all partitions normally. I can e2fsck 5 and 6, but not 1. dmesg shows a read error in the sector that partition 1 begins. Can't access sdg1 at all, tried several different disk programs to access the partition. Back to the two things. I tried to change the disk label, unsuccessfully, and there was a call to check the partition, so I unmounted it and e2fsck'd it. Now I can only get to 2 of the 3 partitions. Everything seems to be there, but it won't recognize the first and only primary partition. All the sector numbers seem to match using gpart, lde, cfdisk and fdisk. Looking for suggestions to find the error in the first partition.Just to clear up a misconception, you have to have a primary partition to hold the logical partitions. So, make sure we are talking about things correctly. With fdisk do you see both primaries with one being shown as extended (and containing the logical partitions)? With the partition you are having trouble with unmounted, do you get an error message when you try to fsck it?Yes, the necessary partitions are there. fdisk, cfdisk and testdisk all show the right stuff. Partition 1 is the problem, the other 2 I can mount normally. If I fsck part1 I get the message that no sdg1 exists (the drive is an external USB that used to have sdg1, sdg5 and sdg6). Testdisk even finds all the files. I thinking that there is some sort of hardware read error that's keeping the OS from recognizing the partition for mounting. I'm running some tests on the drive but I'll post that short error message from fsck shortly.partitions on your system there has to be a physical partition to hold logical partitions 5 and 6, you must have two primary partitions. Post the output from fdisk -l.
is there (or here):
fdisk -l output:
Disk /dev/sdg: 184.4 GB, 184416067584 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 22420 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdg1 * 1 7295 58597056 83 Linux
/dev/sdg2 7296 22420 121491562+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdg5 7296 14590 58597056 83 Linux
/dev/sdg6 14591 22420 62894443+ 83 Linux
I'm having no problems with the extended partitions, only the first
primary. All the number look good, just doesn't recognize sdg1
for mounting, or for fsck.
# fsck /dev/sdg1
fsck 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
e2fsck 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
fsck.ext2: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/sdg1
The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
e2fsck -b 8193 <device>
All the partitioning software and disk utilities find the partitions.
The first
primary partition is not found or recognized. Tried backup superblocks too, but if it doesn't find the device, it won't find the data.All the data is there, I can see it with testdisk, I just can't retrieve or do
anything with it. thanks, ----------------- tony