[Bradford] New laptop, cannot mount partitions

[Devo Too]

On 09/03/2019 19:49, Darren Drapkin wrote:
> On Saturday 09 Mar 2019 17:19:38 Devo Too via Bradford wrote:
>> Hi Folks,
>>
>> Shiny new laptop received yesterday. Followed the Arch Wiki to set up
>> from a .iso on a memory stick and all looked well until - immediately
>> after partitioning the hard drive, trying the mount command.
>>
>> For both sda2 (root partition set as Linux root (x86-64), using mount
>> /dev/sda2 /mnt) and sda3 (home partition set as Linux filesystem, using
>> mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/home having set up /mnt/home directory).
>>
>> sda1 is an EFI System partition and mounted OK.
>>
>> At the mount command, both partitions, response is:
>>
>> /mnt: wrong fs type,
> This suggests to me that you have to specify the type of filling system
> explicitly, for some reason #mount /dev/sda2 /  is not enough. Possibly you
> will need to make sure you are mounting the root partition on the right place
> and you may need a# -t option

Done that - tried both as 'Linux filesystem', which all the tutorials 
sanction, then root as 'Linux root (x86-64)' with the same response each 
time.
> 
> 
>> bad option,
>> bad superblock on /dev/sda2, missing
> Bad superblock suggests that you may have that rare thing on a modern hard
> drive, an actual defective sector. You may need to run fsck on it.

As it occurs on two partitions, each occupying separate sets of sectors, 
it would surely indicate at least two bad sectors? But thanks, I'll try 
fsck too.
> 
>> codepage or helper program, or other error
>>
>> Google searches haven't thrown any light on the topic so far although it
>> is a commonly reported problem.

One of several more G searches suggests the possibility of a corrupted 
kernel in the download. That .iso has been in the Arch Downloads since 
1st March and I used the Bytemark repository, which I'd trust more than 
most, as source. It's none too convincing. Besides, most of the searches 
have thrown up reports from over a year ago and there probably was a 
kernel corruption in the December 2017 release most mention.
>>
>> Do any of you have ideas?
>>
>> Could it be a hard drive problem? I've tried unsuccessfully to use both
>> parted and fsdisk to do the partitioning. It's a 960GB hdd so I suspect
>> it should have 4KB sectors rather than 512 bytes, although the system
>> reports otherwise.
>>
>> All pointers welcome.
>>
>> TIA.
>>
>> Mike
>