# help with external firewire drive

## ziegs

i just got an external firewire drive and card for my computer.  i installed the card and its working fine.  when i type lspci its shown in my list of PCI hardware.

i compiled ieee1394 support and ohci support as well as rawiee1394 support into the kernel and sbp2 support as a module.  i have scsi generic, scsi disk, and scsi emulation compiled in the kernel also.

now when i connect the drive, it gets hot plugged and when i do 

```
cat /proc/scsi/scsi
```

 it gives me the following: 

```
Attached devices:

Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00

    Vendor: WDC WMD20 Model: 00JB-00FUA0    Rev:

    Type:    Direct-Access                                 ANSI SCSI revision: 06

```

when i check the contents of my /dev directory i have sda and sg0, but neither of those will mount or be changed by fdisk.

i've tried a whole bunch of things, but i can't seem to get the drive to mount properly.  it does work correctly in windows at school and on my mac, but I bought it primarily for use with linux.

----------

## palsyboy

I hope I'm not hijacking your thread, ziegs, but I'm having similar problems.  I used the genkernel, so I would assume that already have ieee1394 and scsi support compiled...?  Anyway, when I type

```

cat /proc/scsi/scsi

```

I get

```

Attached devices:

Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00

  Vendor: Generic  Model: STORAGE DEVICE   Rev: 0128

  Type:   Direct-Access                    ANSI SCSI revision: 02

```

I have a Seagate 120 GB HDD w/8 MB buffer at 7200 rpm.  It sits in a Speeze 780U2FL IEEE1394/USB 2.0 external enclosure, in this case connected via Firewire.

----------

## palsyboy

All right.  So I've emerged udev, which should help keep the device name stable.  But I'm still lost.

My external drive was ripped from my SuSE box, so it carries on it a full running Linux system.  All I want is to get my media and documents off of it, then format it as one giant 120 GB ext3 partition to which I can throw regular tarball backups of my current Gentoo system.  I don't know how it having its own partition scheme is going to affect my "mount [device]" line.

I'm assuming I want to do something like add the following line to my /etc/fstab:

```
/dev/hdb /external ext3 defaults 0 2
```

But maybe I have to mount all the SuSE partitions separately.  :Confused: 

Next, I'm guessing I should do the following:

```
mount /dev/hdb
```

...And then it should be part of my filesystem until I unmount it...?

Could someone please assist me?  I'm quite confused.

----------

## thomasmue

@ziegs

I cant see any failures for getting the hardware running. So, maybe you hav not the modules for supporting the filesystem.  Try to mount your drive and have a look on /var/log/messages.

If your drive is working on windows, the filesystem is probably ntfs or vfat, and you need the kernel modules for it.

Hope this helps

Thomas

----------

## ziegs

you don't see any errors because i didn't post the dmesg output.  i do have the correct modules (the drive is formatted to VFAT), and i know they're working cause i have an internal drive that i keep files that need to be shared between windows and linux formatted to vfat.  i went down to a 2.4 kernel, patched it to support firewire hotplugging, and now i'm working well enough.  no udev but i dont mind mouting once after i boot since i dont reboot all that often.  i suppose i'll try a 2.6 kernel down teh road soemtime again, or else i'll just wait till 2.8 comes out

----------

## palsyboy

Excuse the extreme n00bness, but I'm trying to mount the device, but here's what's happening:

```
bash-2.05b# mount -t ext3 /dev/sda3 /mnt/external

mount: mount point /mnt/external does not exist
```

How do I establish a new mount point?  I want one called /external, and I'm guessing I should do something like 

```
mkdir /mnt/gentoo/external
```

However, I don't know in what directory I should make the mount point.  /mnt/gentoo doesn't exist (only a reference to pre-chrooted installation).

----------

## ziegs

try 

```
mkdir /mnt/external
```

then do 

```
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda3 /mnt/external
```

----------

## palsyboy

Thank you, ziegs.  I especially appreciate your help considering I semi-hijacked your thread.  I'm just pretty desperate at this point.  Thanks for pointing me in the right direction to see that everything falls under /mnt.  I know things like that are obvious to everyone else here, but I'm still figuring out the basics.

Anyway, I realized that the hard drive in my external had its own partition scheme (duh, palsyboy!) and fully running filesystem, which I'd forgotten to take into account when I tried to mount sda as a whole, rather than sda3, sda5, etc.

Anyway, my old root partition was hda3, /opt was hda5, and /home was hda6.    I decided to make sure, via dmesg, what the device was called.  I would snip it down, as I believe I know what's relevant, but I'm not sure.  Here's the whole dmesg output:

```

PID hash table entries: 2048 (order 11: 16384 bytes)

Detected 1666.903 MHz processor.

Using tsc for high-res timesource

Console: colour dummy device 80x25

Memory: 514056k/524224k available (2762k kernel code, 9428k reserved,966k data, 168k init, 0k highmem)

Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.

Calibrating delay loop... 3276.80 BogoMIPS

Dentry cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)

Inode-cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)

Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)

CPU:     After generic identify, caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000

CPU:     After vendor identify, caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000

CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line)

CPU: L2 Cache: 256K (64 bytes/line)

CPU:     After all inits, caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000020

Intel machine check architecture supported.

Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.

CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2000+ stepping 02

Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.

Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.

Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.

enabled ExtINT on CPU#0

ESR value before enabling vector: 00000080

ESR value after enabling vector: 00000000

Using local APIC timer interrupts.

calibrating APIC timer ...

..... CPU clock speed is 1666.0555 MHz.

..... host bus clock speed is 266.0648 MHz.

checking if image is initramfs...it isn't (no cpio magic); looks likean initrd

Freeing initrd memory: 1108k freed

NET: Registered protocol family 16

PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfdaf1, last bus=1

PCI: Using configuration type 1

mtrr: v2.0 (20020519)

ACPI: Subsystem revision 20040326

spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7.

ACPI: IRQ9 SCI: Edge set to Level Trigger.

ACPI: Interpreter enabled

ACPI: Using PIC for interrupt routing

ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (00:00)

PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT]

ACPI: Power Resource [URP1] (off)

ACPI: Power Resource [URP2] (off)

ACPI: Power Resource [FDDP] (off)

ACPI: Power Resource [LPTP] (off)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs 3 4 5 6 7 10 *11 12 14 15)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs 3 4 *5 6 7 10 11 12 14 15)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 3 4 5 6 7 10 11 *12 14 15)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 3 4 5 6 7 *10 11 12 14 15)

Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay

SCSI subsystem initialized

Linux Kernel Card Services

  options:  [pci] [cardbus] [pm]

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] enabled at IRQ 12

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] enabled at IRQ 10

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] enabled at IRQ 11

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] enabled at IRQ 5

ACPI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 0000:00:11.1

PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing

vesafb: framebuffer at 0xd0000000, mapped to 0xe0807000, size 5120k

vesafb: mode is 1280x1024x16, linelength=2560, pages=1

vesafb: protected mode interface info at c000:bdb0

vesafb: scrolling: redraw

vesafb: directcolor: size=0:5:6:5, shift=0:11:5:0

fb0: VESA VGA frame buffer device

Machine check exception polling timer started.

gx-suspmod: error: no MediaGX/Geode processor found!

speedstep-smi: No Intel CPU detected.

apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16ac)

apm: overridden by ACPI.

devfs: 2004-01-31 Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)

devfs: boot_options: 0x0

Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir@monad.swb.de).

udf: registering filesystem

SGI XFS with large block numbers, no debug enabled

Initializing Cryptographic API

ACPI: Power Button (FF) [PWRF]

ACPI: Sleep Button (CM) [SLPB]

ACPI: Processor [CPU1] (supports C1, 16 throttling states)

Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 160x64

Real Time Clock Driver v1.12

Non-volatile memory driver v1.2

Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 8 ports, IRQ sharing disabled

ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A

ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A

Using anticipatory io scheduler

Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M

FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077

RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 8192K size 1024 blocksize

loop: loaded (max 8 devices)

Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2

ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx

VP_IDE: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:11.1

ACPI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 0000:00:11.1

VP_IDE: chipset revision 6

VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later

VP_IDE: VIA vt8235 (rev 00) IDE UDMA133 controller on pci0000:00:11.1

    ide0: BM-DMA at 0xfc00-0xfc07, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio

    ide1: BM-DMA at 0xfc08-0xfc0f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA

hda: WDC WD1200JB-75CRA0, ATA DISK drive

ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14

hdc: TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-M1612, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive

hdd: PLEXTOR CD-R PX-W4824A, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive

ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15

hda: max request size: 128KiB

hda: Host Protected Area detected.

        current capacity is 234375000 sectors (120000 MB)

        native  capacity is 234441648 sectors (120034 MB)

hda: 234375000 sectors (120000 MB) w/8192KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63, UDMA(100)

 /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: p1 p2 p3 p4 < p5 p6 >

hdc: ATAPI 48X DVD-ROM drive, 512kB Cache, UDMA(33)

Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20

hdd: ATAPI 40X CD-ROM CD-R/RW CD-MRW drive, 4096kB Cache, UDMA(33)

st: Version 20040403, fixed bufsize 32768, s/g segs 256

mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice

serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12

serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1

input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard on isa0060/serio0

NET: Registered protocol family 2

IP: routing cache hash table of 4096 buckets, 32Kbytes

TCP: Hash tables configured (established 32768 bind 65536)

NET: Registered protocol family 1

NET: Registered protocol family 17

powernow-k8: Processor cpuid 662 not supported

ACPI: (supports S0 S1 S4 S5)

RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0

VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.

Freeing unused kernel memory: 168k freed

usbcore: registered new driver usbfs

usbcore: registered new driver hub

ehci_hcd 0000:00:08.2: NEC Corporation USB 2.0

ehci_hcd 0000:00:08.2: irq 5, pci mem e0d73700

ehci_hcd 0000:00:08.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1

ehci_hcd 0000:00:08.2: USB 2.0 enabled, EHCI 0.95, driver 2004-May-10

hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found

hub 1-0:1.0: 5 ports detected

ehci_hcd 0000:00:10.3: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0

ehci_hcd 0000:00:10.3: irq 10, pci mem e0d75600

ehci_hcd 0000:00:10.3: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2

ehci_hcd 0000:00:10.3: USB 2.0 enabled, EHCI 1.00, driver 2004-May-10

hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found

hub 2-0:1.0: 6 ports detected

Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...

usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage

USB Mass Storage support registered.

ohci1394: $Rev: 1223 $ Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org>

ohci1394: fw-host0: OHCI-1394 1.1 (PCI): IRQ=[10]  MMIO=[dffff800-dfffffff]  Max Packet=[2048]

sbp2: $Rev: 1219 $ Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org>

ReiserFS: hda3: warning: sh-2021: reiserfs_fill_super: can not find reiserfs on hda3

kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds

EXT3 FS on hda3, internal journal

EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.

hub 2-0:1.0: over-current change on port 5

hub 2-0:1.0: over-current change on port 6

ieee1394: Host added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023]  GUID[00023c00300495b2]

Adding 977248k swap on /dev/hda2.  Priority:-1 extents:1

EXT3 FS on hda3, internal journal

kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds

EXT3 FS on hda5, internal journal

EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.

kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds

EXT3 FS on hda6, internal journal

EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.

Linux agpgart interface v0.100 (c) Dave Jones

agpgart: Detected VIA P4X266 chipset

agpgart: Maximum main memory to use for agp memory: 439M

agpgart: AGP aperture is 128M @ 0xe0000000

ohci_hcd: 2004 Feb 02 USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver (PCI)

ohci_hcd: block sizes: ed 64 td 64

ohci_hcd 0000:00:08.0: NEC Corporation USB

ohci_hcd 0000:00:08.0: irq 10, pci mem e0e8d000

ohci_hcd 0000:00:08.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3

hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found

hub 3-0:1.0: 3 ports detected

ohci_hcd 0000:00:08.1: NEC Corporation USB (#2)

ohci_hcd 0000:00:08.1: irq 11, pci mem e0f03000

ohci_hcd 0000:00:08.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 4

hub 4-0:1.0: USB hub found

hub 4-0:1.0: 2 ports detected

usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using address 2

drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 2 if0 alt 1 proto 2 vid 0x03F0 pid 0x0317

usbcore: registered new driver usblp

drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: v0.13: USB Printer Device Class driver

Linux Tulip driver version 1.1.13 (May 11, 2002)

tulip0:  MII transceiver #1 config 1000 status 786d advertising 05e1.

eth0: ADMtek Comet rev 17 at 0xe400, 00:04:5A:8B:88:82, IRQ 5.

USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v2.2

uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.0: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller

uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.0: irq 11, io base 0000d800

uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 5

hub 5-0:1.0: USB hub found

hub 5-0:1.0: 2 ports detected

uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.1: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (#2)

uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.1: irq 5, io base 0000dc00

uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 6

hub 6-0:1.0: USB hub found

hub 6-0:1.0: 2 ports detected

uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.2: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (#3)

uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.2: irq 12, io base 0000e000

uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 7

hub 7-0:1.0: USB hub found

hub 7-0:1.0: 2 ports detected

usb 5-1: new low speed USB device using address 2

usbcore: registered new driver hiddev

input: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse] on usb-0000:00:10.0-1

usbcore: registered new driver usbhid

drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.0:USB HID core driver

usb 7-1: new full speed USB device using address 2

usb 7-1: not running at top speed; connect to a high speed hub

scsi0 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices

  Vendor: Generic   Model: STORAGE DEVICE    Rev: 0128

  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02

Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0

Attached scsi generic sg0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0,  type 0

USB Mass Storage device found at 2

eth0: Setting full-duplex based on MII#1 link partner capability of 41e1.

nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.

0: nvidia: loading NVIDIA Linux x86 NVIDIA Kernel Module  1.0-5336  Wed Jan 14 18:29:26 PST 2004

agpgart: Found an AGP 2.0 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 4x mode

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 4x mode

cdrom: open failed.

cdrom: open failed.

cdrom: open failed.

cdrom: open failed.

cdrom: open failed.

cdrom: open failed.

cdrom: open failed.

cdrom: open failed.

usb 3-1: USB disconnect, address 2

drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: removed

ohci_hcd 0000:00:08.0: remote wakeup

usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using address 3

drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 3 if0 alt 1 proto 2 vid 0x03F0 pid 0x0317

agpgart: Found an AGP 2.0 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 4x mode

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 4x mode

agpgart: Found an AGP 2.0 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 4x mode

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 4x mode

agpgart: Found an AGP 2.0 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 4x mode

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 4x mode

agpgart: Found an AGP 2.0 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 4x mode

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 4x mode

cdrom: dropping to single frame dma

agpgart: Found an AGP 2.0 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 4x mode

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 4x mode

agpgart: Found an AGP 2.0 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 4x mode

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 4x mode

agpgart: Found an AGP 2.0 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 4x mode

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 4x mode

ieee1394: Current remote IRM is not 1394a-2000 compliant, resetting...

ieee1394: Error parsing configrom for node 0-00:1023

ieee1394: Node changed: 0-00:1023 -> 0-01:1023

ieee1394: Node added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023]  GUID[0050770e00071002]

ieee1394: unsolicited response packet received - no tlabel match

scsi1 : SCSI emulation for IEEE-1394 SBP-2 Devices

ieee1394: sbp2: Error logging into SBP-2 device - login timed-out

sbp2: probe of 0050770e00071002-0 failed with error -16

scsi2 : SCSI emulation for IEEE-1394 SBP-2 Devices

ieee1394: sbp2: Error logging into SBP-2 device - login timed-out

sbp2: probe of 0050770e00071002-0 failed with error -16

agpgart: Found an AGP 2.0 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 4x mode

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 4x mode

agpgart: Found an AGP 2.0 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 4x mode

agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 4x mode

ieee1394: Node changed: 0-01:1023 -> 0-00:1023

ieee1394: Node suspended: ID:BUS[0-00:1023]  GUID[0050770e00071002]

ieee1394: Error parsing configrom for node 0-00:1023

ieee1394: Node changed: 0-00:1023 -> 0-01:1023

ieee1394: Node resumed: ID:BUS[0-00:1023]  GUID[0050770e00071002]

ieee1394: unsolicited response packet received - no tlabel match

scsi3 : SCSI emulation for IEEE-1394 SBP-2 Devices

ieee1394: sbp2: Logged into SBP-2 device

ieee1394: Node 0-00:1023: Max speed [S400] - Max payload [2048]

  Vendor: ST312002  Model: 6A                Rev:

  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 06

ieee1394: sbp2: aborting sbp2 command

0x25 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

SCSI device sdb: 234441648 512-byte hdwr sectors (120034 MB)

sdb: asking for cache data failed

sdb: assuming drive cache: write through

 /dev/scsi/host3/bus0/target0/lun0:<3>ieee1394: sbp2: aborting sbp2 command

0x28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00

ieee1394: sbp2: aborting sbp2 command

0x00 00 00 00 00 00

ieee1394: sbp2: reset requested

ieee1394: sbp2: Generating sbp2 fetch agent reset

ieee1394: sbp2: aborting sbp2 command

0x00 00 00 00 00 00

ieee1394: sbp2: reset requested

ieee1394: sbp2: Generating sbp2 fetch agent reset

ieee1394: sbp2: aborting sbp2 command

0x00 00 00 00 00 00

ieee1394: sbp2: reset requested

ieee1394: sbp2: Generating sbp2 fetch agent reset

ieee1394: sbp2: aborting sbp2 command

0x00 00 00 00 00 00

scsi: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery: host 3 channel 0 id 0 lun 0

SCSI error : <3 0 0 0> return code = 0x50000

end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 0

Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 0

scsi3 (0:0): rejecting I/O to offline device

Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 0

 unable to read partition table

Attached scsi disk sdb at scsi3, channel 0, id 0, lun 0

Attached scsi generic sg1 at scsi3, channel 0, id 0, lun 0,  type 0

```

Here, it looks like the device name had changed to sdb, so I tried the following:

```

# mkdir /mnt/oldroot

# mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb3 /mnt/oldroot

mount: special device /dev/sdb3 does not exist

```

So I tried to see if I could touch the device at all:

```

# fdisk /dev/sdb

Unable to open /dev/sdb

```

I also tried switching out "sdb" for "sda", just in case.  And then, just in case I had actually been using an ext2 filesystem and forgotten about it, I tried "ext2" instead of "ext3."  I always got the same result.

What am I doing incorrectly?

----------

## palsyboy

I showed this thread to one of my friends, and he looked over the dmesg output.  He made the point that something is definitely wrong with the FireWire support on my machine, and he'd have to be there in person to play with it (he and I have a large geographical separation).  However, he suggested I use USB in the meantime.  And though it's not FireWire, it will serve suitably as a backup until I get the FireWire working.

So the problem isn't quite solved, but there's a great big Band-Aid on it.  :Smile: 

----------

## pcmaster

What kernel version are you using?

I have a IDE disk attachet to a firewire external adapter, and works ok.

Initial version of 2.6 kernel have problems with firewire. Kernel versions 2.6.7 and newer works ok.

----------

## palsyboy

I'm using 2.6.7, so I don't know what happened.  I'm still using it via USB.

----------

