On Saturday 26 August 2006 11:56, Rodolfo Medina wrote: >> I have the following problem: >> yesterday I bought a new 256 MB pendrive, that wants to be mounted >> as `/dev/sda' whereas the other one I have wants `/dev/sda1'. >> Now, if in /etc/fstab I put the sda entry first, then can't mount sda1; >> and vice versa, if I put sda1 first then I can't mount sda.
Alan Chandler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Use udev to recognise the pendrive from its manufactures name, and create a > symlink (or actual device) called /dev/flash. Mount that in /etc/fstab > > [...] > Rodolfo: >> I forgot to say that my kernel is the 2.4, so udev is not for me - is it? Alan: > Why not upgrade? Rodolfo: > Because, very likely I should re-learn and re-do all I can do with Debian, > re-write many howtos and packages installations. > Hard long work. > > [...] > >> fstab alone should be sufficient to mount any device. >> I'd like to understand *why* it can't manage two sd* devices together, >> or what's the proper way to make it do. Alan: > The problem is (and one of the reasons udev was invented) is that either you > dynamically allocate device ids as they are hotplugged, or you have to > pre-allocate a device for every possible device (not really realistic). > > Once you have dynamic allocation of devices, the order of plugging them in > matters, and that prevents you knowing which is going to be sda and which is > going to be sdb. Rodolfo: > Maybe the problem might be worked out if I could change the old pen's > device into sda as well? > I noticed that my old pendrive can only be mounted as /dev/sda1, > whereas the new one indifferently with /dev/sda or /dev/sdb. > If both pendrives had the same device then I could put just one entry > in fstab and the plugging order would not be very important. > I do want to use both, but one at a time. > Is there a way one can change /dev/sda1 into /dev/sda or /dev/sdb > for the first pendrive? Alan: > possibly, but this is pure speculation on my part. when your pen without > partiions is in /dev/sda, run fdisk /dev/sda and create one partition on it. > Then use mkfs -t vfat to format /dev/sda1 It seems to be solved now. I'm reoprting the whole procedure. Thanks, Rodolfo --------------------------------------------------------- I bought a new pen drive: the old one required `/dev/sda1' and the new one /dev/sda. This means that there was some unnecessary partition in the old pen drive. This created problems when I wanted to mount both pen drives (see below), so I wanted to delete that partition. I did: # apt-get install dosfstools . I canceled the `sda1' entries from fstab, then rebooted. I inserted the old pen drive, and: # fdisk /dev/sda , and deleted the existing partition with `d'. Then I created a new one with: `n', `p', `1', and first and last cylinder the default ones. Then I did: `t' and `6' to select fat16 as partition type. I did `w' to save change and exit fdisk. Then I did: # mkfs.msdos -I /dev/sda . Now the old pen drive required /dev/sda just as the new one. In fstab I replaced the line: /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 vfat sync,rw,user,noauto 0 0 with the two: /dev/sda /mnt/sda vfat sync,rw,user,noauto 0 0 /dev/sdb /mnt/sdb vfat sync,rw,user,noauto 0 0 . Now, when I wanted to mount a pen drive, I did: $ mount /mnt/sda . If I wanted to mount both pen drives, I did $ mount /mnt/sda for the first one, and $ mount /mnt/sdb for the second one. This order is always valuable: after inserting a pen drive in /dev/sda, the second one will be in /dev/sdb. This is true also when using `parted' and `fdisk', even when the devices are not actually mounted: if you use parted with the second pen drive, you have to start it with: # parted /dev/sdb , and fdisk with # fdisk /dev/sdb . The above problem arised because the old pen drive was /dev/sda1, and this made it impossible to edit fstab in a proper way to mount both. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
