mount WD 1TB usb hard drive

[djemmers]

hi,

At work "somebody" dropped our backup hard disk for our freebsd server (mails and files)
I bought a new one but it seems it doesn't get recognized by the server.
btw I am a noob and have to fix it.

en /dev I don't see any new devices comming up when I plug in the new HD (that did happend with the old one)
So I am sure the backup script won't work as it starts with something like " mount dev/da2s1 /backup
and than starts backing up all the desired files...

can anyone tell me how to make sure mounting the new external HD works?
or tell me what to read?

greetings

[gentoobob]

unplug the device, wait 2 or 3 seconds, plug it back in, wait 2 or 3 seconds and then run the command 'dmesg' (without the quotes)

at the bottom of dmesg it should tell you if it recognized the device or not and what name it gave the device. then you can change your script to that device.

[SirDice]

Originally Posted by gentoobob

unplug the device, wait 2 or 3 seconds, plug it back in, wait 2 or 3 seconds and then run the command 'dmesg' (without the quotes)

It's simpler to just $ tail -f /var/log/messages and then plug the device in

[gentoobob]

or that too. he is a noob he says, so I was making it easier on him. one word command versus a string command. thats just how i roll. haha.

[djemmers]

tnx guys...

will try that, but am pretty sure it'll work
and gentoobob, yes I am a noob but not such a noob that I can't type a string command

[djemmers]

ok,
it clearly recognizes the drive:
umass0: Western Digital External HDD, rev 2.00/1.75, addr 3
now when I try to mount it (first line of the backup script)

mount /dev/umass0 /backup I get:
mount: umass0: No such file or directory
wich seems pretty locical as I can't see umass0 in /dev

how do I mount umass0?
I allready tried
mount umass0 /backup
and
mount /umass0 /backup.

[Beastie]

And after "umass0: bla bla on uhubX", doesn't it say something like "da0 at umass bla bla" and then "GEOM_LABEL: Label for provider da0sX is some_filesystem/some_label"?

This should give you all the information you need to mount it.

mount /dev/da0sX /mountpoint

For non-UFS formatted drives/partitions, you must specify the filesystem:

-t some_filesystem

[dennylin93]

Have you partitioned the new drive yet? If not, check out Adding Disks (try not to use sysinstall since fdisk and bsdlabel should work better).

[djemmers]

beastie:
no that was all the info I got.

dennylin93
aha more ways to format a drive?
that will probably be it.
I guess it is formatted in the "windows way" or something.

[Beastie]

Originally Posted by djemmers

beastie:
no that was all the info I got.

Then, it was never formatted, which was the problem all along.

[djemmers]

allright,

read the info,
But I am a bit affraid to format the new drive on the server. since we don't have a backup at the moment and I am affraid I will format the wrong drive ...

I was thinking, is there a way to format the drive on a windows machine? I know it might sound as a strange question but you never know...

[SirDice]

Even if the drive isn't formatted you still need to have an /dev/da? available. As long as the fbsd box doesn't recognize it formatting it is useless.

[Beastie]

As SirDice said, it should at least be detected as daX (e.g. "daX at umass" in dmesg).

As for the rest of your post...
SCSI uses direct access (da) too, just like your *ATA->USB. It should be quite easy to recognize your server HDDs (check % mount).

Yes, you could format it under Windows.
However you can't use NTFS because native support in FreeBSD is read-only and using the fuse driver might not be 100% reliable (at least not as reliable as using NTFS under Windows).
You can't use UFS either because third-party UFS support under Windows is suboptimal and may cause BSODs. Not sure you can even format a drive.
You may try FAT32. No comments.

[djemmers]

Originally Posted by SirDice

you still need to have an /dev/da? available. As long as the fbsd box doesn't recognize it formatting it is useless.

So in my case formatting is useless?
what should I do then?

[dennylin93]

Does dmesg detect the drive when you plug it in? If it does, then proceed with the formatting.

As SirDice mentioned, you don't have many options if you want to format with Windows. UFS support on Windows is unthinkable. FAT32 probably isn't good enough. FreeBSD can get full read and write support for NTFS through fusefs-ntfs, but UFS is still better.

Just format the drive on FreeBSD.

[djemmers]

Originally Posted by SirDice

Even if the drive isn't formatted you still need to have an /dev/da? available.

can't seem to get this right.
to summerize:
command dmesg gives

da1: 160.000MB/s transfers (80.000MHz, offset 127, 16bit), Tagged Queueing Enabled
da1: 34732MB (71132959 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 4427C)
Mounting root from ufs:/dev/da0s1a
WARNING: / was not properly dismounted
WARNING: /home was not properly dismounted
WARNING: /tmp was not properly dismounted
WARNING: /usr was not properly dismounted
/usr: mount pending error: blocks 4 files 1
WARNING: /var was not properly dismounted
umass0: Western Digital External HDD, rev 2.00/1.75, addr 3
umass0: at uhub0 port 1 (addr 3) disconnected
umass0: detached
umass0: Western Digital External HDD, rev 2.00/1.75, addr 3

as you see, my Western Digital has no da?
does that mean there is no da available?

the command mount gave this:

/dev/da0s1a on / (ufs, local)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local)
/dev/da1s1e on /home (ufs, local, soft-updates)
/dev/da0s1e on /tmp (ufs, local, soft-updates)
/dev/da0s1f on /usr (ufs, local, soft-updates)
/dev/da0s1d on /var (ufs, local, soft-updates)

So I am still trying to find the da? for my WD so I can format it and then mount it...
I just don't seem to get this.