[Bradford] New laptop, cannot mount partitions

[Devo Too]

Nothing to lose at all. So ran the commands only to realise I should 
have done something else first.

fdisk -l sda
fdisk: cannot open sda: no such file or directory.

blkid
/dev/sda1 {unchanged}
/dev/sda2 UUID-"{string}"
/dev/sda3 UUID-"{string}"

EUREKA!
Reading the two lines below in the blkid output, which I'd ignored as 
part of the USD drive report (/dev/sdb1) the second line is /dev/loop0, viz:

/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs"

  - is it now a case of rewrite the stick with another type and try 
again? If so, instructions please? I just followed the "how to".

Mike

On 10/03/2019 14:44, Steve Wilson via Bradford wrote:
> 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
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
> 
>