How do I mount a USB Hard Drive?

UNIX Solaris
1

I have a Sun-Fire V440 running with Solaris 9 and am trying to get a WD USB Hard Drive mounted. None of the articles I've read so far have helped.

Output from rmformat :

Looking for devices...
     1. Volmgt Node: /vol/dev/aliases/rmdisk0
        Logical Node: /dev/rdsk/c5t0d0s2
        Physical Node: /pci@1e,600000/usb@a/storage@1/disk@0,0
        Connected Device: WD       My Passport 259F 1014
        Device Type: Removable

Output from fdisk :

fdisk /dev/rdsk/c5t0d0s2
fdisk: Cannot open device /dev/rdsk/c5t0d0s2

Output from ls -l /dev/rdsk/c*2|grep usb

lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root          58 Oct 25 13:44 /dev/rdsk/c5t0d0s2 -> ../../devices/pci@1e,600000/usb@a/storage@1/disk@0,0:c,raw
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root          58 Oct 25 14:05 /dev/rdsk/c6t0d0s2 -> ../../devices/pci@1e,600000/usb@a/storage@2/disk@0,0:c,raw

Any help would be deeply appreciated.
Thanks.

2

How is the disk partitioned and what filesystem is it formated with? To mount *s2 will mostly not work because in Solaris terms s2 (slice 2) is the whole disk.

3

I'm unable to access the drive to see the partitions. I believe the disk is formatted as NTFS.

4

Checkout the documentation here:
Overview of USB Devices (Solaris 8 System Administration Supplement)
It is for Solaris 8 but should also work for Solaris 9!

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5

I will check this out and let you know how it turns out.

6

Would you not use format or fdisk on the disk device rather than slice 2?

fdisk /dev/c5t0d0

Robin

7

What version of Solaris???

Are you trying to access data already on the USB drive (from a NTFS partition) or just to reformat the device and use it on Solaris?

As you already seem to know

# rmformat -l

will give you the device node (c5t0d0)

You would then use

# fdisk

to label/partition the drive, however, fdisk will probably error unless volume management is stopped first. How to do that depends on what the version of Solaris is. It could be

# svcadm disable volfs

or

# /etc/init.d/volmgt stop

if the Solaris version is older.

BE VERY CAREFUL using fdisk if you need the data on the USB drive.

If you want to reformat you have choice to set it up as DOS/FAT or use a Solaris filesystem by setting the slice(s) up and then newfs'ing them.

Hope that helps.

---------- Post updated at 12:56 PM ---------- Previous update was at 11:05 AM ----------

PS. Sorry, I am an idiot. Your original post says it's Solaris 9

8

To rbatte1, I tried fdisk on the device node, after stopping volmgt as suggested by hicksd8, no joy. here's the result;

bash-2.05# fdisk c5t0d0
fdisk: Cannot stat device c5t0d0.

I've tried with volmgt started and stopped.

Hicksd8, the disk is empty of data. I want to format to use the entire drive. Drive size is over 200GB. Could that be an issue?

The server has been rebooted, if that means anything. So, back to the drawing board.

I do appreciate your efforts. Thanks.

9

Can you try:

# fdisk /dev/rdsk/c5t0d0s0

If that doesn't work try

# fdisk /dev/rdsk/c5t0d0s2
10 
fdisk /dev/rdsk/c5t0d0s0
/dev/rdsk/c5t0d0s0: Cannot get disk label geometry.

fdisk /dev/rdsk/c5t0d0s2
fdisk: Cannot open device /dev/rdsk/c5t0d0s2.

I tried this using each slice #. s7 returns the same message I got for s0. 1 and 3-6 return the same message I got for s2.

I'm wondering if the problem might be how the disk is formatted? I could connected it to a PC and format it either FAT or NTFS if you think that might help.

11

Hmmmmm.......

If you run the 'format' command in expert mode

# format -e

can you see this device? If so, try the 'scsi' menu and see if you can write a disk label to the device.

Obviously, be very careful to select the correct device (c5t0d0).

---------- Post updated at 07:30 PM ---------- Previous update was at 07:26 PM ----------

also....whilst attempting anything with this USB disk, volume management must NOT be running.

12

Well Hicksd8, we've made progress. format -e is showing me the drive. I an unfamiliar with expert mode. After selecting the disk I get a list of "drive types". See below. As this drive is a Western Digital, should I select "other"?

      11. c5t0d0 <drive type unknown>
          /pci@1e,600000/usb@a/storage@1/disk@0,0
Specify disk (enter its number): 11



AVAILABLE DRIVE TYPES:
        0. Auto configure
        1. Quantum ProDrive 80S
        2. Quantum ProDrive 105S
        3. CDC Wren IV 94171-344
        4. SUN0104
        5. SUN0207
        6. SUN0327
        7. SUN0340
        8. SUN0424
        9. SUN0535
        10. SUN0669
        11. SUN1.0G
        12. SUN1.05
        13. SUN1.3G
        14. SUN2.1G
        15. SUN2.9G
        16. Zip 100
        17. Zip 250
        18. FUJITSU-MAP3735NC-0108
        19. SUN72G
        20. HITACHI-DF600F-0000
        21. HITACHI-DF600F-0000
        22. HITACHI-DF600F-0000
        23. HITACHI-DF600F-0000
        24. HITACHI-DF600F-0000
        25. other
Specify disk type (enter its number):
13

I'd try "auto configure" before "other"

---------- Post updated at 07:47 PM ---------- Previous update was at 07:43 PM ----------

I think after you've used 'format' (in expert mode) to write a label to the device, fdisk will then work (if you need to use it).

14

auto config is failing. I think I'll take your suggestion to wipe the disk and try again. I won't be able to get to that until Monday next week tho.

Thanks for all the great suggestions. I've made more progress today than in the last week.

I'll post the results next week. Thanks again.

T

15

Solaris doesn't support NTFS, USB hard drives must use a supported file system like PCFS (fat32) to be mountable. There used to be ntfs3g/fuse packages for OpenSolaris but they won't work with Solaris 9, perhaps even less on SPARC hardware as the ntfs3g code might be x86 only.

16

I want to thank everyone for their suggestions. After formatting the drive as FAT32, I'm still unable to use this drive on the Solaris server. Maybe it's the disk itself. I'm thinking of trying a drive that is less that 1TB. Anyway, not quite ready to throw in the towel just yet, but wanted to thank you for the idea's presented.

T

17

Is it hardware issue or is it software?

I would suggest:

Try a different USB port on the Solaris box. Remember to run rmformat to find out the new device node.

Running format in expert mode, select the drive followed by the analyse menu. This provides destructive (write & read) and non-destructive testing of the device. See if you can run that without error. To run the whole thing will take hours and hours however.

This is (presumably) a powered USB device (disk drives usually are) so I wouldn't expect USB power issues, however, just to be sure try a powered USB hub between the USB disk and the Solaris box.

I don't think the drive capacity should be an issue but how about trying a simple USB memory stick to see if that works. That would verify the O/S, USB port, etc.

Make sure that volume management is not running when trying all this lot.

Try to fdisk a USB stick, and if that works, then plug in the disk drive and try again. That should prove if drive capacity is an issue.

This USB disk is a plain drive, yes? Without a pseudo built-in CD drive, backup software or any such crap?

Most of the above is to test hardware but I could go on and on with other ideas. Famous last words, it shouldn't be this difficult.

Hope that helps. I'll await your results.

18

Yes, don't underestimate the disk size factor.

Solaris 9 is really old, released 15 years ago. At that time the internal disks size was probably less than 100 GB, and I believe the maximum partition size for UFS was still 1TB so I wouldn't bet for pcfs support for such an incredibly large disk by Solaris 9 standard.

Moreover, your USB ports are likely USB 1.1 so even if you manage to access your disk, the bandwidth would be painfully slow.

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