I took a 4 year old 80GB disk drive, formerly running Microsoft Windows, then repartitioned it with fdisk. But I get the following odd behavior mount /dev/sde1 /mnt #Mounts as 80GB vfat mount -t ext2 /dev/sde1 /mnt #Mounts as 1GB ext2 Of course, "-t ext2" will guarantee no other partition type gets used, but a mount without options I would not expect to do either of a. Mount the whole disk drive, all 80GB rather than 1GB. b. Mount a different filesystem (vfat) type than I set with fdisk (83).
I suppose that any of the commands "shred", "wide", "sterilize", or dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sde bs=1000 count=80000000 would prepare a disk drive so that later no ext2 partition would "mount" as a Microsoft vfat partition. However, one is behooved to use fewer such dangerous commands. Since 1994, I have used the following standard sequence to prepare a Linux disk drive, whether that drive was old or new, fdisk (or cfdisk) to create partitions mkfs (or mke2fs) to put filesystems on those partitions /etc/fstab changes if I want system mounts e2label if I want to mount with a label DID I MISS SOMETHING? Like this oddity today, on another disk drive 6 years ago, I was similarly perplexed by a first partition that misbehaved. Configuration: This "internal" Seagate ST380020A 80GB disk drive I attached to a CableMax USB2.0 to IDE & SATA Cable so this bare (screwed on metal plate to protect electronics) ATA drive is externally connected by USB cable and a power connection. I run Debian 3.0 (not yet upgraded to 3.1). I don't expect this configuration causes these oddities, since I use this configuration often, although I don't often convert Microsoft disk drives to Linux ext2. The rest of this email supports the above statement. Here is the output for my 80GB disk drive using fdisk -l /dev/sde # Disk /dev/sde: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 9729 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes # Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sde1 1 141 1132551 83 Linux #1.1GB /dev/sde2 142 422 2257132+ 83 Linux #2.2GB When I run mount /dev/sde1 /mnt I get the following response from "mount", /dev/sde1 on /mnt type vfat (rw) which is not ext2! Indeed, I can see former Microsoft Windows files with "ls -F /mnt", My Documents/ Program Files/ autoexec.bat* command.com* config.sys* I get the following from "df", /dev/sde1 78131104 78131104 0 100% /mnt so the full 80GB disk drive has been mounted, not just /dev/sde1. When I run mount -t ext2 /dev/sde1 /mnt I get the following response from "mount", /dev/sde1 on /mnt type ext2 (rw) as expected from my settings with fdisk. The files now include Linux (No Microsoft files) files/directories from /boot, as seen by the following "ls -F /mnt", grub/ lost+found/ boot.b bzImage-2.4.27-sound System.map-2.4.27-sound boot-bmp.b boot-compat.b boot-menu.b boot-text.b chain.b os2_d.b map I get the following from "df", /dev/sde1 1114724 14532 1043568 2% /mnt as expected for my 1.1GB partition. -- Jameson C. Burt, NJ9L Fairfax, Virginia, USA [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.coost.com (202) 690-0380 (work) LTSP.org: magic "mysterious and awe-inspiring even though we know they are real and not supernatural" -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]