A permanent data storage device used for storing and retrieving digital information using rapidly rotating discs (platters) coated with magnetic material in a rigid form factor (as opposed to floppy disks).
18
votes
3answers
525 views
How can I limit the output speed of stdout?
I'm running CentOS 5.7 and I have a backup utility that has the option of dumping its backup file to stdout. The backup file is rather large (multiple gigabytes). The target is an SSHFS filesystem. To ...
23
votes
7answers
45k views
How do I find out what hard disks are in the system?
I need to know what hard disks are available, including ones that aren't mounted and possibly aren't formatted. I can't find them in dmesg or /var/log/messages (too much to scroll through). I'm hoping ...
21
votes
7answers
7k views
dd: How do I know if it's still working?
I've not used dd all that much, but so far it's not failed me yet. Right now, I've had a dd going for over 12 hours - I'm writing an image back to the disk it came from - and I'm getting a little ...
8
votes
2answers
483 views
saving data from a failing drive
An external 3½" HDD seems to be in danger of failing — it's making ticking sounds when idle.
I've acquired a replacement drive, and want to know the best strategy to get the data off of the dubious ...
4
votes
5answers
2k views
Backup whole hard disk Linux
I am looking for a method to backup a whole disk in case something is screwed up...
I don't even know what to install on some special devices of the server, and every time it is not the same.
...
6
votes
5answers
2k views
How to know if /dev/sdX is a connected USB or HDD?
How can I know if /dev/sdX is a local HDD or usb key ? best doing this without root privileges.
OK , udevadm helped a lot:
For local HDD:
udevadm info --query=all --name=sdb | grep ID_BUS
E: ...
2
votes
3answers
1k views
Can't mount EXT4 hard drive after mounting it in windows
I have a 2TB Western external HDD.
Its original filesystem was NTFS but I formatted it to EXT4.
I had no problem in Linux; But today after I mounted it using ext2fsd in a windows box, I cant mount it ...
1
vote
3answers
164 views
Get Position of RAID Hard Drives
I was recently tasked with creating a hard drive management system on Linux. I needed to write a program that monitored when drives came online and offline and created/removed links to the drive ...
10
votes
1answer
2k views
Using a LVM partition as a Virtualbox drive
Is it possible to use a LVM partition as a Virtualbox disk?
I can't find any option to use a device as a Virtualbox disk, only disk images.
9
votes
7answers
1k views
What's the best way to format a HDD in Linux in order to leave no trace?
I'm running Debian and need a way to format the entire hdd in order to not leave any trace on it because I want to donate it to a friend. So what will be the best way in order to format it? If I ...
11
votes
1answer
559 views
What is the difference between “extended” partition and “logical” partition
What is the difference between "extended" partitions and "logical" partitions on my hard disk? What's the need for each? I am using Linux
5
votes
2answers
826 views
How to time grep commands accurately?
I want to compare the speed of these two commands:
grep pattern1 files*
grep pattern2 files*
Unfortunately, the first grep reads much of files* into memory
buffers, so the second grep runs ...
3
votes
2answers
3k views
What does this hard disk error message mean: “Current Pending Sector Count …”?
I grabbed this information from Disk Utillity on Linux Mint:
Current Pending Sector Count:
Normalized: 200
Worst: 200
Threshold: 0
Value: 22 sectors
What does it mean? Is it possible to ...
1
vote
3answers
156 views
How to mount multiple partitions
Is there a way to mount multiple partitions, or even all partitions, of a disk with a single command in Linux? Is there, perhaps, an option that the mount command accepts that would facilitate this? ...
5
votes
4answers
2k views
Convert image of a partition into image of a disk with partition table
I have an image of an existing partition generated with dd if=/dev/sdXN of=image.bin. Now I want to use this image as the basis for a virtual machine. I know how to convert the image into a format ...
4
votes
4answers
167 views
If I have an SSD and a hard disk in a system, can the SSD act as cache for the hard disk?
Say I have some partitions; one on a SATA drive and one on an SSD. I want to create a "virtual" hybrid disk. Is this possible?
3
votes
4answers
1k views
From df device name to physical drive name (vendor / type)
Seeing the device name by df, is it somehow possible to resolve it to the physical drive name such as vendor / type.
/dev/sda3 915.4G 34.9G 880.0G 4% /share/HDA_DATA
/dev/sdd3 ...
3
votes
1answer
304 views
How to recover a missing file
I am running ubuntu and last week the system didn't let me alter files as if I had no write permissions. Then on reboot the system did a check of the system which took some time. Then everything went ...
2
votes
2answers
385 views
How to troubleshoot a computer freeze from liveCD?
I'm helping my dad fixing his old computer. I am now running it from Fedora 16 with XFCE Live CD.
If I try to install, as soon as it gets to the part where it writes partition to disk however, the ...
2
votes
4answers
2k views
External hard drive fails to mount
I have an external 2.5" 1TB Samsung hard drive, and it fails mount. Here's what palimpsest says about it:
It's even able to do a benchmark on it:
When I try to mount it normally, it fails:
$ ...
1
vote
1answer
302 views
fdisk isn't showing my hard drive as properly formatted (but it is)
I've got 3 1TB drives which I've set up to use LVM. Here's the output of pvdisplay:
--- Physical volume ---
PV Name /dev/sda1
VG Name vgpool
PV Size ...
-1
votes
1answer
65 views
Can not mount drive after installing windows vista
I have searched for weeks now and have not found an answer to my question. Hopefully you guys can give me a push in the right direction :)
Ok, here is what happened:
I have linux mint on a 1.5 TB ...
