Thursday, February 14, 2013

How can I tell if my Linux install is in its own partition?

Q. I have a Gateway netbook with Windows 7 starter. I installed the Ubuntu 10 version of Linux. But I don't think it installed on it's its own partition, because it never asked me about the size or anything of a partition or which partition to use. So, I followed some instructions on the internet to put Linux on its own partition, but how do I know its really on there?

A. It did, but if it will make you feel better, do this:

Boot into Linux.
Open a console shell
Type 'df -h'

The partitions will be displayed. The information on the right will tell you the mount point. The one marked '/host' will be the windows partition. On the left the host partition will be /dev/sda1. All the rest are you Linux partitions.

If you want to know more about /dev/sda1, type 'fdisk -l' (be careful with fdisk).

How do you determine what Linux file system your using?
Q. When you log onto a Linux system and get to the command prompt, how can you determine which of the many file systems supported in Linux you are using? Is there a command that will identify it?

A. Use fsck with the N option which just show what would have been done, but also show you what type of filesystem it is.

fsck -N /dev/(device-name)

e.g.

fsck -N /dev/hdc2

The 'mount' command wont help if the filesystem isn't mounted, and looking in /etc/fstab wont help because you cant be sure that information can be trusted.

How can I mount a disk I unmounted on my Mac?
Q. I ejected one of my hard drives by accident and when I tried to mount it again, it says "Mount failed. Try running first aid on the disk and then retry mounting. I ran first aid (both verify and repair disk) and that failed as well. It's an almost new disk with all my most important files (of course). The recommended action by First Aid is to erase and reformat.

A. If you're familiar with the Terminal application you could try getting the drive mounted via the command line. The programs you'll likely need are "fsck" to make sure the partition is clean and "mount" to actually mount the partition. Unfortunately those tools have a bit of a learning curve if you don't have any UNIX/Linux background.

Another option is other GUI-based disk/mount utilities. "Mount Me!" has worked for some people but I haven't had a need for it personally.



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