User Feedback :: DSL 2.3Can't identify hda1 as (Vfat32)WinME

My old computer (Celeron 128 MB Ram 6 Gb HD) previously was able to mount the C Drive hda1 but all of a sudden it doesn't. In loading up from the CD scanning the harddisk it fails to load a number of modules xfs,minix,nfs,efs after trying to write to etc/fstab.

When I try to mount hda1 I get this error message saying that I need to specify the file system. But how do I do that?

I've changed the drive back to 1 partition as originally configured and even used fdisk /mbr etc. fdisk and Partition Manage and Super F Disk report no problem with the drive and the now single partition. Windows works fine. But DSL reports that it can't find a valid FAT on dev 03:01.

Is there any way I can manually establish my C drive as a Vfat32 drive and load these missing modules. I would like to be able to mount this drive as well as store the configuration/backup file on this drive. My USB flash drive (should be sda1) is also not seen and can not be mounted. As I have no working floppy and only a CD reader I am stuck with no storage.

I have searched and scanned through many forum pages but can't find an answer to this problem.

Only 2 days ago both the 2.3 Version and the new DSL- N (although the printer didn't work and the file manager was missing ) worked and were able to mount hda1.

Appreciate some help.
John

Code Sample

sudo mkdir /C
sudo mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /C

Thanks pr0f3550r for your advice.
Unfortunately it still doesn't work.

After writing the mount command I got the following information

mount: wrong fs type , bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda1
or too many mounted file systems.

I've used scandisk and other scanning programs and the C: drive is reported as fine.
One possibility is that I have used Puppy Linux and on C drive I do have a pup001 file which I believe is an Ext file system in a file. Could this be the problem.
I'm sure though that this file was present last time I ran DSL. Although I did have other partitions on my drive at the time.

Again thanks for your help.

John

the pup001-file doesn't have any effect.
For DSL it is just an ordinary file, which name happens to be pup001...

BUT you may have a problem with your partition table. Post your output to following:

Code Sample

sudo su
sfdisk -l /dev/hda

(it prints your partition table)

If it looks similar to this (my USB drive that worked in windows and knoppix, but not in DSL), then that is the problem.. and it can be fixed.

Quote

root@box:/home/dsl# sfdisk -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 1009 cylinders, 2 heads, 62 sectors/track
Units = cylinders of 63488 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

Device Boot Start End #cyls #blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 ? 15078801+ 16439200- 1360400- 84344761 69 Unknown
start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,1,62) found (68,13,10)
end: (c,h,s) expected (1023,1,62) found (288,115,43)
/dev/sda2 ? 13721931+ 28801620- 15079690- 934940732+ 73 Unknown
start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,1,62) found (371,114,37)
end: (c,h,s) expected (1023,1,62) found (366,32,33)

If there is "expected", or "found" or "?" or "Unknown" like in above, then you have a bad partition table in your hd.

Thanks Anaconda for you advice. I did as you suggested but because I am new to Linux I still haven't mastered how to cut and paste especially from the command line to other applications.

Anyway the response was the following:

sfdisk:ERROR Sector 0 does not have an msdos signature
/dev/hda unrecognized partition
No partition found.

I also tried it in puppy but puppy doesn't have that command.
I used cfdisk and it showed the partition as 6488MB cyl 16065 x 512 = 8225280 bytes 255Heads 63 Sectore/T Start 1 End 788 Blocks 6329578+Id b Sys W95 Fat 32 which appears correct.

I also downloaded a program called TESTDISK (DOS) which analysed the drive and the single partition as vfat32.
The MBR appears to be OK.
The numbers in TESTDISK were slightly different.

Anyway if all else fails I will have to wipe the HD and start all over. Thanks again for your help.

John

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