Simple mounting of a single backup drive

Issues related to hardware problems
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hoytp
Posts: 51
Joined: 2009/05/29 17:05:55

Simple mounting of a single backup drive

Post by hoytp » 2011/12/05 16:47:30

Hi.
I did some searches but wasn't able to find the answer. It's probably too simple, and yes I've read most of the FAQs and instructions.

I have a client who has his own server with a single drive. He brought in another drive with an older backup (same filesystem format), and wanted to update his backup. We installed the drive but it wasn't recognized, and I am not accomplished enough to figure out why the drive couldn't be mounted. Can someone tell me the series of commands to mount a new drive without destroying the contents.

N.B. we finally were able to accomplish the task by inserting the drive and rebooting, letting fstab automatically be updated. Are there commands I could use as a batch script to do this remotely from now on?

Thanks for any help.

Pete

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jlehtone
Posts: 4523
Joined: 2007/12/11 08:17:33
Location: Finland

Simple mounting of a single backup drive

Post by jlehtone » 2011/12/05 19:53:32

I was not even aware that something would modify /etc/fstab automatically.
I've seen that happen on Knoppix and other rescue distros, where the intent
is to mount every filesystem present in the machine, but they all get mount
points under /mnt/.

How to mount without destroying?
[code]mount -t type -o options dev mountpoint[/code]
That is trivial.

I do get the impression that the disk was added to a running system,
aka hotplugged. You don't say whether it was USB, SCSI, SATA, or PATA.
All of those are not even hotpluggable. USB is very hotpluggable and
GUI desktops usually show icon and option to mount volume as user.

SCSI and AHCI-SATA usually require that you tell the kernel to
rescan the bus for new devices. Something like:
http://misterd77.blogspot.com/2007/12/how-to-scan-scsi-bus-with-26-kernel.html

After that you should have a device to mount.

Remember that you have to umount the filesystem and tell the
kernel to detach the device if you intend to hot-unplug the drive.

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