How can I access hda1 when my Ubuntu is installed on hdb1?

[Drax89]

First off, Hi everyone!

I have windows installed on hda1, and instead of reformatting my drive and losing over 100 GB of important stuff, I just shoved an old 4 GB hard drive into my computer so I could install Ubuntu on it. Everything is working well, and surprisingly Windows still works, too. The only problem I have is that I can't seem to be able to get to any of the content on that hard drive. I have loads of music and programs I want to use in linux that are on that drive, and I couldn't fit them all on this tiny little thing here. I have Ubuntu installed on /dev/hdb1, and I have windows and games and stuff on: /dev/hda1 (FAT32), /dev/hda5 (NTFS), /dev/hda6 (FAT32).
I tried to mount the drive, but according to Ubuntu, it doesn't exist.

Here's what I do, and what happens:

root@ubuntu: mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows
mount: special device /dev/hda1 does not exist

Is there a special way to do this, or am I just doing it wrong?
Thanks in advance for any help.

[AlexK]

Hello and welcome to the forums Drax89,

Could you post the output from this command:

sudo fdisk -l

that is - "small L"
if that just shows the ubuntu drive only try: sudo fdisk -l /dev/hda

[Drax89]

'sudo fdisk -l' returned this:

Disk /dev/hda: 122.9 GB, 122942324736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14946 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks            Id    System
/dev/hda1   *           1           4933    39624291       c      W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda2            4934       14946    80429422+    f      W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5            4934        9940     40218696      7      HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda6            9941       14946    40210663+    b      W95 FAT32

Disk /dev/hdb: 4304 MB, 4304240640 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 523 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks      Id     System
/dev/hdb1   *           1           497     3992121   83     Linux
/dev/hdb2             498         523      208845      5      Extended
/dev/hdb5             498         523      208813+   82    Linux swap / Solaris

For clarification, hda1 and hda2 are seperate partitions, and within hda2, there's hda5 and hda6.

It seems that Ubuntu sees my hda, but can't mount it....
Thanks in advance if you know what the problem is, and how to fix it.

[Drax89]

Hmm...what I did, I do not know, but I was just able to mount all 3 partitions to seperate folders in Ubuntu...maybe I just needed to do the fdisk so it would see them...
Thanks for the help, I'll surely be back here bugging you guys for more in the near future.

[edit]
I rebooted my computer and now it's stopped working again. Maybe it has something to do with Wine? That's the only thing I installed before I rebooted.

[AlexK]

Ok, I am going to assume you want the windows partitions mounted on startup automaticially, if so add the following lines to your /etc/fstab file:

/dev/hda1 /mnt/windows_c vfat user,rw,users,umask=0000 0 0
/dev/hda5 /mnt/windows_d ntfs ro,user,users,umask=0002 0 0
/dev/hda6 /mnt/windows_e vfat user,rw,users,umask=0000 0 0

To edit your /etc/fstab file, you need to have root permissions, so execute this command:

sudo nano /etc/fstab

replace nano with a text editor e.g. vi, emacs, gedit, pico etc...

Also make sure that the driectories /mnt/windows_c exist i.e. use mkdir to create them,

[Drax89]

That worked perfectly, thanks!

If you could though, could you quickly explain what "user,rw,users,umask=0000 0 0" and "ntfs ro,user,users,umask=0002 0 0" mean, though?

If not, that's fine, and thanks again for the help.

[AlexK]

The entries in the /etc/fstab are sturctured like so:
1st col = device name, what the system sees the device as
2nd col = mount point, where it is located in file manager
3rd col = file system type, vfat = 32-bit FAT, ntfs = NTFS, ext2/ext3/reiser are common linux file systems
4th col = basic mount options which will be explained below
The fifth and sixth columns (0 0) part are just for various system functions.

users = mountable by a normal user instead of superuser.
ro/rw = read/write permissions for filesystems. ro = Read Only; rw = Read Write. Currently NTFS write is a bit iffy and it is not recommended to enable rw option for NTFS file systems.
umask = this field just ensures that users can have correct access to the mount point. umask=0000 is full read/write umask=0002 is read only.

If you would like more info (more in-depth)about these, take a look at the following man pages:

man fstab
man mount

Hope this helps.

[iwanabeguru]

hi

check your /dev directory for special files hda and hda1
hda the first master ide controller and its not exist.
root@ubuntu: mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows
mount: special device /dev/hda1 does not exist

you must create it with the mknod
cd /dev
mknod -m 660 hda b 3 0
what that means?
-m set the permisions
hda the name of the special file
b determine the device type , now a block device
3 the major number its indentify the first ide controller
0 the minor number indntify the whole device

and then you must create the device files to the partitions on the device
first partition
mknod -m 660 hda1 b 3 1
second partition
mknod -m 660 hda2 b 3 2

and so on

have fun!