Cannot read second partition on FAT32 hard drives

[youngtomedison]

I cannot get my computer, which is running Debian Etch, to read the second partition on dual-partitioned Windows 98 hard drives (FAT 32). This happened both on my beige-box PIII and my current Dell P-IV.

I'm trying to get the data off a Seagate 80-gig IDE hard drive and a couple of Western Digital 40-gig IDE drives, all of which have been partitioned into two partitions (in the case of the Seagate, boot and storage).

I was using a "Speed Metal Box" to connect the drives my computer without having to rip it apart. The external USB hard drive case worked just fine under Windoze 98, both partitions showed up as separate drive letters. Under Linux, only one of the partitions, the first one, showed up no matter what drive I was trying to read.

I thought that Linux might be incompatible with the Speed Metal Box (Promise IDE to USB chip set) so I bit the bullet and took out one of my computer's CD-ROM drives and connected the hard drive in its place, careful to mind that it was set to "master" (which is where it was put). The drive now showed up in the "storage media" dialogue, again, only the first partition. When I tried to access it I got the following error message:

Error kio_media_mount
hal-storage-fixed-mount refused uid 1000

WHY can I not read the second partition on these drives?

WHY won't the drive mount when I hard-wire it in?

(WHY don't I just give up, empty my bank account and get a Mac?)

[saikee]

To prove to us that you didn't lie show us the output of
fdisk -l

[irlandes]

I cannot speak for debian. However, some distros, to wit Mandriva use some sort of utility to prevent changing /etc/fstab to include other partitions. In Mandriva, it is fstab-sync and one can look in 'man fstab-sync' to see how it works and how to disable it.

In Kubuntu 7.04, there is a section in /etc/fstab which is automatically updated, but the rest of /etc/fstab can be changed as you wish and will not be changed.

As a quick 'elimination tip', look at /etc/fstab and see if it gives you a clue about auto-update. Both Mandriva LE 2005 and Kubuntu specifically state what they are doing.

[irlandes]

A quick Google would seem to indicate that debian etch does not interfere with human control of /etc/fstab. But, it is still important in general to know some distros go to great lengths to control this.

Tip to OP. It is common to need to edit /etc/fstab to enable new partitions if not installed with them present. Google can give you lots of help on this

[saikee]

The "fdisk -l" shows what are available at the hardware level. No partition or hard disk can hide from this command. If it isn't shown there then the Bios cannot detect it so it would be a hardware connection problem.

The /etc/fstab is a file for a user to control which partitions are to be mounted. The installer starts it but it is up to the user to update it.

Some Live CD distros will automount everything for you but as a rule in post-installation a user is expected to mount extra partitions himself/herself.

If a partition previously mounted but subsequently doesn't then it may be due to the mounting instruction no longer valid or a corruption to the superblock. Say if the partition has been reformatted to a filing system different to the original mounting instruction then that partition will be abandoned by the kernel. You will have to do exactly the same if you were the kernel because the provided instruction to mount it no longer works.

[youngtomedison]

To prove to us that you didn't lie show us the output of
fdisk -l

This issue is no lie. I know better than to waste your time or my own on pointless trolls.

I originally addressed this issue in a thread called "Case of the Missing Partition" (http://justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=149820).

You very graciously asked me to run a particular command and show the output. Unfortunately, I subsequently forgot about that thread, which is why I posted this one.

I have posted the information which you asked me for on the thread whose location is posted above. Since this thread has become redundant, why don't we move the discussion back over to "Case of the Missing Partition"?

Thank you to all who have responded so far.