Linux partitioned disk mounted on OSOL without formatting

UNIX Solaris
1

Hello and Merry Christmas...

Quick question after tireless search around the web.

Description:

I have a WD My book world edition II that met an untimely death. However the 2 SATA disks inside seem to be working just fine. Want to add either one of them to my Solaris Desktop.

Since I havent done anything like this before your help is much appreciated.

The disks are of 1TB capacity each and are formatted according to 'a' WDMWEII site in ext3 which would make sense given the overall product. So I'm supposing it IS ext3.
I am running a OSOL snv_134b system updated with Oracle's best and final wishes. I want to manually add the hard disk to my system and access it's contents without formatting it, hence losing them.

Any help would be much appreciated!!!

part of dmesg:
Dec 24 18:00:20 MainComputer gda: [ID 243001 kern.info] Disk1:    <Vendor 'Gen-ATA ' Product 'WDC WD10EADS-00L'>
Dec 24 18:00:20 MainComputer ata: [ID 496167 kern.info] cmdk1 at ata0 target 1 lun 0
Dec 24 18:00:20 MainComputer genunix: [ID 936769 kern.info] cmdk1 is /pci@0,0/pci-ide@11/ide@0/cmdk@1,0
Dec 24 18:01:29 MainComputer pseudo: [ID 129642 kern.info] pseudo-device: devinfo0
Dec 24 18:01:29 MainComputer genunix: [ID 936769 kern.info] devinfo0 is /pseudo/devinfo@0
Dec 24 18:01:29 MainComputer rootnex: [ID 349649 kern.info] xsvc0 at root: space 0 offset 0
Dec 24 18:01:29 MainComputer genunix: [ID 936769 kern.info] xsvc0 is /xsvc@0,0
Dec 24 18:01:31 MainComputer pseudo: [ID 129642 kern.info] pseudo-device: nvidia255
Dec 24 18:01:31 MainComputer genunix: [ID 936769 kern.info] nvidia255 is /pseudo/nvidia@255
Dec 24 18:01:40 MainComputer unix: [ID 954099 kern.info] NOTICE: IRQ16 is being shared by drivers with different interrupt levels.

Output of format and consecutive commands:
AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
       0. c7d0 <DEFAULT cyl 9726 alt 2 hd 255 sec 63>
          /pci@0,0/pci-ide@11/ide@0/cmdk@0,0
       1. c7d1 <drive type unknown>
          /pci@0,0/pci-ide@11/ide@0/cmdk@1,0
Specify disk (enter its number): 1



AVAILABLE DRIVE TYPES:
        0. DEFAULT
        1. other
Specify disk type (enter its number): 0
selecting c7d1
No current partition list
No defect list found
[disk formatted, no defect list found]
No Solaris fdisk partition found.


FORMAT MENU:
        disk       - select a disk
[...]
        quit
format> p
WARNING - This disk may be in use by an application that has
      modified the fdisk table. Ensure that this disk is
      not currently in use before proceeding to use fdisk.
format>
2

What says

 fdisk -v -W - /dev/rdsk/c7d1p0 | tail -5

?

1 Like
3 
michnmi@MainComputer:~#  fdisk -v -W - /dev/rdsk/c7d1p0 | tail -5
* Id    Act  Bhead  Bsect  Bcyl    Ehead  Esect  Ecyl    Rsect      Numsect
  253   0    0      1      4       254    63     247     64260      3919860   
  253   0    0      1      248     254    63     279     3984120    514080    
  253   0    0      1      280     254    63     402     4498200    1975995   
  253   0    0      1      403     254    63     1023    6474195    1947045870

thanks

4

The partition ids tell there is RAID involved (Linux RAID Autodetect). If the data partition(s) is/are not directly accessible as ext3, there is little chance you could mount them from Solaris. Even if they are, ext3 isn't supported natively by Solaris/OpenSolaris. There are two distinct projects with the goal to provide this support, one in userland: http://www.genunix.org/distributions/belenix_site/binfiles/README.FSWfsmisc.txt and one in the kernel: Quick howto (Project ext3.Quick howto) - XWiki

1 Like
5

Ok, will try those. However, two quick thoughts that need clarifying.

Is it possible then to mount them on a linux system. I have a couple and would like to try them if there is such a chance. And more importantly would this be possible through an external case for the SATA drives USB connected to the linux machines?Would that in your opinion work?
And another question:Would booting through a live -let's say,Ubuntu- CD give me the ext3-supporting window I'd need to access the internally connected SATA drives, mount them, copy them and salvage their data?

Again many many thanks

6

Using a Gnu/Linux based distribution would definitely be a better approach to recover ext3 data. I cannot tell if ubuntu would be a good choice or not for this software raid support. You might have better luck in a Linux focused forum.

1 Like