[Bradford] New laptop, cannot mount partitions

[Duncan Hughes]

Hi Mike
I’ve just looked through the Arch installation and you do have to create your own partitions and filesystems.  Look for the section in the installation docs that starts with “Format the partitions”.
You’ll need to pass the full path of sda to fdisk, i.e.  fdisk /dev/sda
Your loop0 device is a file from the boot iso that’s been mounted as a file system.
Anything in /dev is not a file, it’s the handle to a device.

HTH
Duncan.



> On 10 Mar 2019, at 15:10, Devo Too via Bradford <bradford at mailman.lug.org.uk> wrote:
> 
> 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
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
> 
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