[Bradford] New laptop, cannot mount partitions

[Steve Wilson]

assuming there's no data to be lost on sda2/sda3 I'd be tempted to 
create the file system on them and try to mount.

# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
# mkdir /mnt/home
# mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/home

Steve.

On 10/03/2019 11:31, Devo Too via Bradford wrote:
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide is the "head" 
> document with various links off it to help find other wiki pages and 
> materials. I've copied this 631Mb .iso archlinux-2019.03.01-x86_64.iso 
> correctly onto a USB stick by CL having checked the signature.
> 
> I've been using both parted and fdisk to try to generate the required 
> file systems. But nothing comes of them when I attempt to mount them. 
> mkfs looks interesting, maybe worth trying to set the partitions 
> manually? But as nothing else is getting through  I'm seriously 
> suspecting something is blocked.
> 
> No swap partition as I'd allowed sufficient space within the / partition 
> for a 4GB swap file.
> 
> The only thing on the laptop is the few 'Doze10  remnants the assemblers 
> used to test it prior to despatch. I thought they'd have been 
> overwritten but it seems nothing is being permanently written.
> 
> Thanks for your input so far. Very much appreciated.
> 
> Mike
> 
> On 10/03/2019 00:43, Steve Wilson via Bradford wrote:
>> It doesn't look like there's a filesystem configured on there, have 
>> you missed/overlooked any mkfs commands?
>>
>> If there's a filesystem/swap configured there should be a FILE= output 
>> to blkid.
>>
>> Do you have a link to the instructions you've been following? Also was 
>> there anything on the disk before which you're trying to keep?
>>
>> Steve.
>>
>> On 10/03/2019 00:16, Devo Too via Bradford wrote:
>>> The responses are on the laptop and I'm having to type this on the PC 
>>> as haven't been able to get into the laptop hdd. Nothing gets written 
>>> onto it sofar as I can tell. I have to switch the keyboard layout 
>>> from US to UK each time I switch it on.
>>>
>>> # blkid
>>> /dev/sda1 Label=System, UUID= {string}, vfat and PARTUUID= {string}
>>> /dev/sda2 PARTUUID= {string}
>>> /dev/sda3 PARTUUID= {string}
>>>
>>> On 09/03/2019 23:37, Steve Wilson via Bradford wrote:
>>>> What's the output of blkid show?
>>>>
>>>> This should allow you to identify the actual file system used on the 
>>>> partition, it might be a case of making sure the filesystem 
>>>> tools/progs package is installed for the specific file system.
>>>>
>>>> I've not tried arch so I don't the the OS specific details, maybe 
>>>> it's time I had a play with it.
>>>>
>>>> Steve.
>>>>
>>>> On 09/03/2019 23:06, Devo Too via Bradford wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> 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
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>