# Trouble mounting partitions using MFSLive



## browncoat (Aug 24, 2004)

I am using MFSLive for the first time and am running into problems.

Short version:

I can't mount partition 7. When I try I get the following

EXT4-fs: Update your userspace programs to mount using ext4
EXT4-fs: ext4dev bacwards compatibility will go away by 2.6.31
GFS2: gfs2 mount does not exist
mount: mounting /dev/hdd7 on /mnt failed: No such file or directory

I also can't dd copy. When I use the command:
dd if=/dev/hdc7 of=/dev/hdd7

I get:
dd: can't open '/dev/hdc7': No cuch device or address

However I can use pdisk for both hdc and hdd and get a partition listing.


Long version:

I have a 500GB drive that is in a GSOD loop. I believe the swap partition is too small. I accidently made it 127 instead of 511.

I have a new 500GB drive that I want to copy the contents of the original drive to, but this has a 511MB swap space.

I created the new drive using the same original image as the old one but used a 511 swap size. This drive was tested in a Tivo to make sure it works.

I now want to copy each partition except the swap partition from the old drive to the new drive. I am aware that the extra MFS partition on the new drive will be smaller than the old one since the swap partition is larger. I am hoping there is nothing in the end of that partition so nothing will be lost.

I tried doing a mfstool backup | restore but it said the drive wasnt big enough. I am guess that is because I'm expanding the size of the swap partition and it is not shrinking the size of the extra MFS partition.

I also can not use WinMFS to do a copy because it keeps crashing on this computer and I do not have another desktop that I can try it in or USB enclosures to put the drives in.

So doing the partition copy seems to be my only option.


I have always used the MFSTools v2.0 boot cd with lba48 support. The problem with that is I can't use pdisk or mount the partitions unless I boot with vmlnodma. That will seriously slow down the copy of a 500GB drive. So I wanted to see if MFSLive could do it with DMA on. It was looking good until I couldn't mount or dd.

These are series 1 drive so when I booted MFSLive I used option 2 which specifically says is for being able to mount partitions 4, 7, and 9.

The old drive is hdc and the new one is hdd.

The only reason I need to mount /dev/hdd7 is to confirm that the copy was OK. There is a difference in the rc.sysinit files and mounting it after the copy is a good way to confirm the copy was ok. But of course I can't even dd at the moment.

I couldn't find anything out there about this problem specifically for the Tivo partitions.

What do I need to do to mount the Tivo partitions and dd copy everything?

Thanks


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

browncoat said:


> I am using MFSLive for the first time and am running into problems.
> 
> Short version:
> 
> ...


I meant to get back to you last weekend and stuff came up.

Apologies.

If it's only 500GB, then a 250MB swap should be enough.

If you want to overwrite a partition on one drive with a partition from another drive, you need to not have any of the partitions mounted.

If you want to mount a partition in order to get at what's in it to copy a file or just see a listing of the files, then you'd mount it.

I seem to remember a problem with the MFS Live cd v1.4 with regard to mounting partitions, although I knew less about working with Linux back then so it could have been my fault, but where I failed with v1.4 I had success with v1.3b

If you want that version and can't find it online, PM me.

I read somewhere not too long ago where someone who knows a lot more about this stuff than I was talking about creating his own partitions or editing them, and it turns out that each partition has, at the front of it, info on where each other partition starts and how long it is, so if you copy a partition that's beyond the swap partition and the swap partition is larger, the info is going to be wrong.

I've lost track. Do you have the ability to run WinMFS?

It has an easy way to change the bootpage to get the TiVo to boot from the alternate 3 boot partition set, or, if it already is, to change it back.

That might help you.

Also it can re-write a bootpage that's been corrupted.


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