Usb harddisk: which /dev do I use to mount

[jyer]

Hello,
I'm trying to use an old Dell Latitude Laptop as a server at home. I've configured it fine so far and have started sharing stuff with Nfs and Samba. Only, I now want to plug an external usb harddisk into the machine in order to share more data and have regular backups of my files.
The only problem is that I don't know how to know which /dev my harddisk referes to and hence don't know which /dev to use to mount my harddisk (mount /dev/? ext).
I'm using Debian 3.1 and haven't install any X11 server or desktop. I haven't installed any specific USB driver either. My dmesg is:
[code]
Linux version 2.2.20 (herbert@gondolin) (gcc version 2.7.2.3) #1 Sat Apr 20 11:45:28 EST 2002
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0009f000 @ 00000000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 07ef0000 @ 00100000 (usable)
Detected 300687 kHz processor.
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 599.65 BogoMIPS
Memory: 127024k/131008k available (1756k kernel code, 412k reserved, 1664k data, 152k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 16384 (order 5, 128k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 131072 (order 7, 512k)
Page cache hash table entries: 32768 (order 5, 128k)
VFS: Diskquotas version dquot_6.4.0 initialized
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
512K L2 cache (4 way)
CPU: L2 Cache: 512K
CPU: Intel Pentium II (Deschutes) stepping 02
Checking 386/387 coupling... OK, FPU using exception 16 error reporting.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
Checking for popad bug... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
mtrr: v1.35a (19990819) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfbc7e
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 131072 bhash 65536)
Starting kswapd v 1.5
Serial driver version 4.27 with HUB-6 MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured
Real Time Clock Driver v1.09
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
loop: registered device at major 7
PIIX4: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 39
PIIX4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0x0860-0x0867, BIOS settings: hdaMA, hdbio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0x0868-0x086f, BIOS settings: hdcMA, hddio
hda: TOSHIBA MK2018GAP, ATA DISK drive
hdc: TOSHIBA CD-ROM XM-1902B, ATAPI CDROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: TOSHIBA MK2018GAP, 19077MB w/0kB Cache, CHS=2432/255/63
hdc: ATAPI 24X CD-ROM drive, 128kB Cache
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.11
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
md driver 0.36.6 MAX_MD_DEV=4, MAX_REAL=8
scsi: <fdomain> Detection failed (no card)
NCR53c406a: no available ports found
sym53c416.c: Version 1.0.0
Failed initialization of WD-7000 SCSI card!
IBM MCA SCSI: Version 3.2
IBM MCA SCSI: No Microchannel-bus present --> Aborting.
This machine does not have any IBM MCA-bus
or the MCA-Kernel-support is not enabled!
megaraid: v1.11 (Aug 23, 2000)
aec671x_detect:
3ware Storage Controller device driver for Linux v1.02.00.008.
3w-xxxx: tw_findcards(): No cards found.
scsi : 0 hosts.
scsi : detected total.
Partition check:
hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.13)
apm: disabled on user request.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 152k freed
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0 for Linux NET4.0.
Adding Swap: 979956k swap-space (priority -1)
Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir@monad.swb.de)
Linux PCMCIA Card Services 3.1.33
kernel build: 2.2.20 #1 Sat Apr 20 11:45:28 EST 2002
options: [pci] [cardbus] [apm]
PCI routing table version 1.0 at 0xfb940
00:03.0 -> irq 11
00:03.1 -> irq 11
Intel ISA/PCI/CardBus PCIC probe:
TI 1131 rev 01 PCI-to-CardBus at slot 00:03, mem 0x68000000
host opts [0]: [ring] [pci + serial irq] [pci irq 11] [lat 32/32] [bus 32/34]
host opts [1]: [ring] [pci + serial irq] [pci irq 11] [lat 32/32] [bus 35/37]
ISA irqs (scanned) = 3,4,9,10 PCI status changes
cs: cb_alloc(bus 32): vendor 0x1317, device 0x1985
cs: cb_config(bus 32)
cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff: excluding 0x210-0x217 0x220-0x22f 0x378-0x37f 0x388-0x38f 0x4d0-0x4d7
cs: IO port probe 0x0218-0x021f: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0230-0x0377: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0380-0x0387: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0390-0x04cf: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x04d8-0x04ff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0800-0x08ff: excluding 0x800-0x84f
cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: excluding 0xcf8-0xcff
fn 0 bar 1: io 0xa00-0xaff
fn 0 bar 2: mem 0x60060000-0x600603ff
fn 0 rom: mem 0x60040000-0x6005ffff
irq 11
cs: cb_enable(bus 32)
bridge io map 0 (flags 0x21): 0xa00-0xaff
bridge mem map 0 (flags 0x1): 0x60040000-0x60060fff
tulip_attach(device 20:00.0)
tulip.c:v0.91g-ppc 7/16/99 becker@scyld.com (modified by danilo@cs.uni-magdeburg.de for XIRCOM CBE, fixed by Doug Ledford)
eth0: ADMtek Centaur-C rev 17 at 0xa00, 00:10:7A:69:37:F7, IRQ 11.
cs: memory probe 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff: clean.
tty01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
[code]

Thanks a lot for any help,
jr

[jyer]

ah, yeah. Neither sda 1-5 or sdb 1-5 work to mount the device.

[bidi]

It looks like you're booting with the 2.2.20 kernel! Are you sure it's Debian 3.1, cause that's a 3.0 kernel? Might just be that the 2.2 series of kernels don't have the support you're looking for. Try upgrading to a 2.6 series!

[jyer]

stupide question, but can I update to a 2.6 serie without reinstalling. If so, how do I proceed?

[jyer]

Ok. Well, a few other problems have occured since my last message. I tried to upgrade the driver following this
official debian upgrade tuto. Now, when I boot I get the following message:

vfs: cannot open root device "303" or unknown-block(3,3)

Then, the computer crashes for "kernel panic".
I found this thread on a forum which obviously deals with my case, but it's written by (and for) more advanced users than I am. Does anyone feel like translating it into "newby" language?

The second problem occured when, thinking that all this was dued to the fact that I had installed a i386 on a i868 system (I'm still not quite sure wich archi I'm using), I decided to install a i868 kernel. The result is that my old booting kernel has been replaced by my the i386. I therefore cannot log into linux anymore. Does anyone know how I can reload my original linux kernel on boot?

The third problem is that I then decided to reinstall sarge to avoid having to settle the problems mentionned above. Only, when loading the installer components from the cd, I get the following message:

There was a problem reading data from the CDROM. [..] Failed to copy file from CDROM

When testing the CD's integrity, it echos that the CD isn't an official Debian CD. I checked the md5sum after download and burning and downloaded and burned iso's from different servers without success.

Does anybody have a suggestion?

[bidi]

Ok. Well, a few other problems have occured since my last message. I tried to upgrade the driver following this
official debian upgrade tuto. Now, when I boot I get the following message:

vfs: cannot open root device "303" or unknown-block(3,3)

Then, the computer crashes for "kernel panic".
I found this thread on a forum which obviously deals with my case, but it's written by (and for) more advanced users than I am. Does anyone feel like translating it into "newby" language?

The second problem occured when, thinking that all this was dued to the fact that I had installed a i386 on a i868 system (I'm still not quite sure wich archi I'm using), I decided to install a i868 kernel. The result is that my old booting kernel has been replaced by my the i386. I therefore cannot log into linux anymore. Does anyone know how I can reload my original linux kernel on boot?

The third problem is that I then decided to reinstall sarge to avoid having to settle the problems mentionned above. Only, when loading the installer components from the cd, I get the following message:

There was a problem reading data from the CDROM. [..] Failed to copy file from CDROM

When testing the CD's integrity, it echos that the CD isn't an official Debian CD. I checked the md5sum after download and burning and downloaded and burned iso's from different servers without success.

Wow! That's a lot of problems. For the first problem is seems like you tried to compile your own kernel, which is not recommended on a real system unless you're used to it. You should always use apt to install or update anything under Debian. An option at this point would be to boot from a rescue floppy/CD and change the GRUB menu that way.

For the second problem isn't really a problem. The i686 (it's 686, not 868 by the way) is pretty much an updated 386, which means any code for the 386 works on 686 processors (this has been discussed many times int he past).

The third problem could a few different things, but the one that comes to mind is the burning speed. OS ISOs should be burned at 4x, anything more than that is just a gamble.

Hope this helps you.