Re: [opensuse] How to mount USB drive in single user mode?
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----- Original Message ----
From: John
The Friday 2008-05-09 at 10:39 +0100, John wrote:
I would advice using midnight commander to copy your disk(s).
That's a good idea.
There is a caveat, though: the second run. You can tell it to overwrite all if newer, but nevertheless it keep pestering with questions (it can not overwrite links and some files).
For backups, I prefer "rsync".
-- Cheers, Carlos E. R.
I think the best over all solution to these sorts of problems is an knoppix dvd especially for people who aren't too familiar with the kernel - and others. It's a handy thing to have around. The machine can be worked on while still having all of the usual facilities including the web. I also found the availability of earlier versions useful too. V4 would read my early fake raid disks. V5 wouldn't. The cpu/board broke and the installation wouldn't run on the new hardware. Fortunately I had a V4 disc. I had no problem copying the entire set up with mc but agree that it wouldn't be much use for back ups. John -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thanks all for info so far. I found out several things to this point: Single user mode is not runlevel 1 :) I was booting by putting "single" on the GRUB command line, and the external drive simply doesn't get seen in that mode. Runlevel 1 it works fine. My system will not transition between runlevels properly (from single to RL1, using init 1 or shutdown -i1 -g0 now) just issues a long stream of errors and dies with no login prompt nor shell prompt. Similarly moving up from RL1 to 5 doesn't work properly (I get prompts, but I don't get a viable wireless network--present, but not viable, very odd) The USB drive does show up as the same drive all the time (/dev/sdb1) in RL1. fdisk -l shows slices fine, but is only useful to me if the device has already been mounted as it doesn't show unmounted anything. It does have a 4GB limit, so my original goal which was to be able to make a trivial copy of the /dev/sdb1 device using "dd" will require me to split the device into many slices. I love the idea of using a rescue CD. I can't get a stable backup of an unstable file system (the file system might be capable of recovering, but the application data can still be captured in a transient (and therefore inconsistent) state, so the backup must be made on a quiescent file system to be safe. If the fs isn't even mounted that pretty much is guaranteed quiescent! Anyway, the rsync or MC ideas might well serve me better in the long run, I'd actually made a file level copy of my data but did it using "cp" so any links in the system files will be screwed up. The main reason for the backup was so I could instantly (well, in a single command at least) reinstall my old system in case I should have troubles with 10.3 (10.2 has been a nightmare, but I think that's because this was a relatively early 64bit dual core CPU laptop. Not a friendly combination for a Linux release). So, many thanks for all input, most helpful and educational. Cheers all! Simon "You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions." — Naguib Mahfouz ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Friday 2008-05-09 at 04:50 -0700, Simon Roberts wrote:
Thanks all for info so far. I found out several things to this point:
Single user mode is not runlevel 1 :) I was booting by putting "single" on the GRUB command line, and the external drive simply doesn't get seen in that mode. Runlevel 1 it works fine.
Ah.
My system will not transition between runlevels properly (from single to RL1, using init 1 or shutdown -i1 -g0 now) just issues a long stream of errors and dies with no login prompt nor shell prompt. Similarly moving up from RL1 to 5 doesn't work properly (I get prompts, but I don't get a viable wireless network--present, but not viable, very odd)
That's a curious problem. I have always been able to switch modes.
The USB drive does show up as the same drive all the time (/dev/sdb1) in RL1.
good.
fdisk -l shows slices fine, but is only useful to me if the device has already been mounted as it doesn't show unmounted anything.
fdisk -l should list all partitions regardless of the mount state.
It does have a 4GB limit, so my original goal which was to be able to make a trivial copy of the /dev/sdb1 device using "dd" will require me to split the device into many slices.
No, no. You can not do a "copy" of your linux filesystem to a fat filesystem. You need an external usb disk formatted in one of the native linux format: ext3, reiser, xfs... Why? One thing is the 4GB limit per file. There are worse things: - permissions - ownership - hardlinks and softlinks - acl none are supported by fat, so you will loose them in the backup, and the restore operation will fail to restore a working system, unless you save a list of all that things on another file and have a script to recreate them. If you do use fat for backup media, you have to backup in an archive, like tar, zip, cpio...
I love the idea of using a rescue CD.
I prefer having a rescue partition in the same HD, or another HD of the same machine - unless the HD itself has problems. It runs faster and is customizable. An alternative is linux on a usb mem stick. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFIJEqUtTMYHG2NR9URAqnBAJ4zpXKPkTs46eClA34C5FWP1nY3GwCeOgkV qlUuTp0Zm4cJ5ArkRAtEZI8= =1fsB -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (2)
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Carlos E. R.
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Simon Roberts