Accessing /dev/sda1 after unlocking drive

[davroslyrad]

Greetings everyone,

I am working on an embedded Linux (2.6.1 system that boots from a flash (JFFS2) disk, however the system has a SATA controller and a HDD used only for the storage of data. It is required that the security password be enabled on the drive.

All of the security work, enable/disable password, unlock drive, etc, all functions as it should.

The problem is when the system boots (from power on), and the drive is locked, the /dev/sda1 (and /dev/sda2) partitions are not known to the system. I can still access /dev/sda to unlock the drive, and read SMART data, however trying to mount the partitions yields the following error:

/ $ mount -a
mount: Mounting /dev/sda1 on /mnt/dsk1 failed: No such device or address
mount: Mounting /dev/sda2 on /mnt/dsk2 failed: No such device or address

After unlocking the drive, fdisk will show the partitions on the drive.


So, the question is, how does one get access to these partitions once the drive is unlocked?

Many thanks,


davroslyrad

[Freston]

Ai!

I may have had a similar situation. What worked for me was issuing an `fdisk -l` (that is a small L, not a 1 or a capital i) before mounting. It's ugly, but it forces a reread of the partitioning table, so the newly accessible partitions get 'discovered'. You can make it non-verbose by doing it like this: `fdisk -l > /dev/null`

I dunno if it'll work for you, but it seems worth a shot

[davroslyrad]

Many thanks for your reply!!

Unfortunately, it does not work. The fdisk displays the partitions, as seen below:

/ $ fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 244 1959898+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 245 30401 242236102+ 83 Linux


I thought this would have worked as well. Hence my posting here.

If this should work,this might point to a problem in the block device, or the scsi driver. I wonder if some error is set in the device table, and not being cleared out appropriately.

Many thanks for your reply.

davroslyrad