By viewing my Disk&File Systems in Hardy, can anyone see why one HDD is partially crippled?

[Steven Vollom]

Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Thursday 20 November 2008, Steven Vollom wrote:
>   
>> Gene Heskett wrote:
>>     
>>> On Wednesday 19 November 2008, Steven Vollom wrote:
>>>       
>>>> For over a year, the HDD that my current OS is on, has had its larger
>>>> partition unusable.  My system is Hardy KDE3.5.10.
>>>> The HDD is an 80gb Maxtor.  20gb was partitioned with ext3 and made
>>>> primary.  My current version of Hardy in on that partition.  The balance
>>>> is 58gb according to Dolphin, and is unusable and empty.  When I click
>>>> on the vacant HDD, it says 'Permissin Denied'.  I would like to use the
>>>> empty space.  Additionally, I have a vacant area, 14gb, for another OS
>>>> that is unusable on a 200gb Maxtor HDD.  I wanted to put Intrepid on it
>>>> to get some experience.  The balance of the drive is used for storage in
>>>> two other partitions, one 68gb, the other 119gb.  I did not attach the
>>>> screen print, because I am pretty sure it exceeds the size limit of the
>>>> 'List', however, I can send it to your email address for viewing.  If
>>>> you have a solution for my problem, I will figure a way to describe the
>>>> resolution of the problem and post that on the List, so others may learn
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> >from it.  TIA.
>>>       
>>>> Steven
>>>>         
>>> I would start this little procedure by running 'badblocks' on both oif
>>> those drives to see if they are usable.  I have a 160 and a 200, both
>>> maxtors here, and I don't think badblocks would be happy with either.
>>>       
>> How do I run badblocks, explain like I know nothing at all, please.
>>     
>
> Its a separate download I believe, so you may have to go get it.
>
> Then its a read the manpage to see how you want to run it.  I would set it to 
> generate an output file you can keep & read, also it can be fed back to 
> setblocks, which will force the drive to mark them as bad & reallocate a new 
> sector from its spares, until it run out of spares anyway.
>
>   
>>> Then if the data on them isn't precious, I'd just use fdisk to repartition
>>> them as you see fit.
>>>       
>> It isn't precious, but I don't want to lose it if not necessary.  I am
>> building a new computer.  Can I transfer the data to it, or will it
>> corrupt a new HDD?
>>     
>
> Not if the drive is already prepared, formatted and properly mounted, see man 
> mount for how to do that.  You will need to make a directory in either /media 
> or /mnt on the original drive, and then "mount -t ext3 /dev/sd? /mnt/dirname.
> At that point you should see a listing of the drive and its free space with 
> the command 'df'.
>   
Are you familiar with Hardy Disk&FileSystems in the Advanced tab of 
System Settings.  I am more familiar with a GUI.  In fact your 
explanation is over my head, yet.  Still, I am going to read; if I can 
generate the confidence, I will attempt your way.  If I can not generate 
the confidence, I may repost for help.
> I've had some problems using cp to copy binaries and prefer to use something 
> like mc for making a copy to another already formatted drive.  Or you can 
> make a tar.gz out of the data, which will shrink it quite a bit & then copy 
> the *tar.gz file to the other drive before unpacking it on that drive with a 
> tar xzf your.tar.gz.
>   
This is stuff I really want to know, however, I haven't learned how 
yet.  I have some time; will read and see if I can come up to speed.  I 
should have by now anyway. 
> See the man pages for tar and gzip to make the compressed archive.
>   
Thanks again, my friend.
Caio  ( I got that from a new Italian friend.)  or Cheers! (I got that 
from another.) I like them both.
>   
>> Thanks for the help.
>> Steven
>>     
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