How do I mount eSata drives

[dougal]

Hi folks, I have a new Toshiba eSata drive to use for data storage. How do I get the thing to mount/unmount. The system (and it is a great system guys, well done) sees the drive in 'Disk Utility' programme but, that's all it does. The 'Disk Utility' programme I have loaded doesn't seem to do anything other than show me what disks I have connected and that's it. I thought it might have useful tools like, oh, I don't know... disk utilities. Sorry for being sarcastic... is the programme a work in progress.

Any way, how do I get it to work like any other disk drive.
I went into GParted to format it to see if that is what was needed but, it doesn't see it.

Thanks in advance.

[Admin-Amir]

Hello dougal.

search in synaptic for:

mount manager.
USB mount.

mount manager will let you mount the drive.

[dougal]

This might sound silly but, how do I use mount manager. It appears to be installed already. Should it pick things up automatically?

The drive is eSata so why should USB mount be relevant here?

Again sorry for being naive. I like to do as much as I can myself.

Thanks.

[Admin-Amir]

Hello dougal.

USB mount + mount manager works to complete some issues.
If you have the mount manager install,see if you can see your eSata Drive,
Then click the option mount.
then let me know is you can mount the Drive.

one more thing for you dougal.
I hope that first of all you add to your user all the permissions under =>system=>Admin=>users&Group.
you first need to give your user the full permission support on your system.

[dougal]

When I connect the drive using USB the system sees the drive connected when I use the command 'lsusb' but, it is not mounted. I do not see it in my file manager.
How do I use a similar ls command for eSata?

Thanks

[Admin-Amir]

dougal,

as far that I remember there was A bug with the eSata command ,
that is way I have ask you to install the USB mount in Advanced.
please look on the second part that I have add to the last post on the permission issue.
Then after you done Restart your machine and tell me what you see mount/not mount.

[dougal]

Ah yes, sorry I missed the second part of your last post.

I have only done the full permissions command a couple of times - can you remind me of the command to add me to the group.

Thank you.

[Admin-Amir]

dougal,

when you in the user Settings=>down you have Manage Groups =>then you mark group from the left,
mark the Group name then in the right - properties - mark the box next to the name of the Group.
Then do the same to the next Group and so on.

now here is solution for you if you want to use the eSata option and not the USB.
please read the post and see if you can get it done.

IMPORTANT: If you decide to follow the steps below always make sure that you work on the right disk (i.e. external) to not wipe out the data from your internal drive. Also doing a backup of your internal disk is a good idea in case things don’t go as expected.

0. Prerequisites

- Ubuntu on Live USB stick with some presistent storage
- Small USB key which will be used for booting
- External hard drive connected though eSata

1. Ubuntu installation on external disk

This is done using Live USB. Go through the installation steps until you reach the screen about partitioning. Here I had to used the “advanced” option (the radio button at the very bottom) as none of the others seemed to be able to work with the external disk. Once you get to the next screen it should show partitions on the internal disk but also on the external disk. Let’s say my external disk is “/dev/sdb”.

Here I selected my external disk and created 2 primary partitions: swap - with 2x the size of RAM in my laptop, ext4 - using the remaining space and mounted to “/”.

Go to through the following screen(s) until you reach the summary with “Advanced” button. Hit this button and uncheck the box about updating the boot record - I didn’t want to do it as my BIOS does not support eSata booting anyway (otherwise I would specify it should boot from my external disk, i.e. /dev/sdb instead of /dev/sda).

Review the changes to make sure that any disk changes will only be done on the external drive. And then GO - Ubuntu should be installed in your external drive.

2. “kexec-loader” ISO preparation

While running Ubuntu from the Live USB key go to http://www.solemnwarning.net/kexec-loader/download.cgi and download from there kexec-loader-2.2.1-cdrom.tar.gz and modules-2.6.30.5-1.tar.gz.

Unpack both of them. From the modules copy “sata.tlz” and “ext4.tlz” into “kexec-loader-2.2.1-cdrom/iso-modules” directory. Note that if you used another file system than “ext4” to install Ubuntu you should take the appropriate module for your installation.

In kexec-loader-2.2.1-cdrom run “mkiso.sh kexecloader.iso”. This will create ISO image that we will use for boot.

3. Bootable USB preparation

Plug the 2nd USB key that we will use for boot. With GParted format it to FAT32 and label the partition as KEXECLOADER. The label is important as “kexec-loader” during boot will look for a partition with that name to read its configuration file from there.

Get access to the files in the created ISO image using the following commands:
$ mkdir /mnt/kexecloadercd
$ mount -o loop path/to/iso /mnt/kexecloadercd

Download UNetBootin tool used to create bootable USB. If you run plain Ubuntu, it will complain about missing “p7zip-full”. I don’t know if this is really needed but I installed it following one of the “to do list after installing Ubuntu 10.04” posts.

Run UNetBootin. Select “Custom”. In “Kernel” open the one in /mnt/kexecloadercd/isolinux/vmlinuz. In “Initrd” open the one in /mnt/kexecloadercd/isolinux/initrd.img. In the USB dropdown make sure you select the one that we just formated above and that will be used for boot. In my case it was visible as “/dev/sdd” device. Hit OK.

If used as-is the UNetBootin USB stick will show a menu at start up. If you want to avoid that backup “syslinux.cfg” present there and replace it with one containing just this line:

default /ubnkern initrd=/ubninit

4. “kexec-loader.conf” configuration file

The final step is to tell kexec-loader about the external disk Ubuntu is installed on.

In the root directory of the USB boot disk create file called “kexec-loader.conf” with the following content:

timeout 5
title Lucid Lynx on eSata
root sdb3
kernel /vmlinuz
cmdline root=/dev/sdb3
initrd /initrd.img

... and replace “sdb3” with the device name for the partition of your external disk where Ubuntu is installed.

Alternatively, you can use UUID instead of “sdbN”. To get UUID execute in terminal “ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid” and then in “kexec-loader.conf” file use:
...
root UUID=<your uuid>
...
cmdline root=UUID=<your uuid>
...

(“=” is present twice in cmdline)

Note that “kexec-loader” has a shell that you can use for troubleshooting. Its commands are documented at http://www.solemnwarning.net/kexec-loader/readme.html in “Shell” and “Shell Reference” sections.

5. BIOS boot order

If you want to automatically boot from your USB key when it’s plugged in you’ll need to change the boot order in BIOS and put the USB hard drive above internal hard drive.

[dougal]

I think I have added myself to the Administrator group for the computer and I am about to reboot and see what changes have been made for disk access.

[Admin-Amir]

dougal,

you need to add yourself to all of the Groups not just to the adm,Admin Groups!