Adding additional physical HD

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Username : Date : Action : Comments [ close all ]
AhmedM : 28/09/02 09:53 PM : Incident created -   My system has two (2) hard drives (13GB and 4GB) and both are recognized by Linux 8.2. I installed M. Linux 8.2 on the 13GB drive and it is working great. The second drive is FAT drive with NO Data on it. How can I add this second one to M. Linux system so I can take the advantage of extra storage? And, how can I configure it so I can install extra packages/updates/upgrades on it (it is done automatically on my system and I do not know where it takes place)?
tensor : 28/09/02 10:40 PM : Reply received -   The faster way is start diskdrake --expert you will see two tabs, one for your first hard disk (most likely hda) and one for your other disk (if its a secondary master, you will see it as hdc) From diskdrake you can not only mount your disk, but also repartition and format it. UNIX can map any partition on a drive to a directory (a process called 'mounting'), so to use your disk you create and empty directory, like, for example, /mnt/disk2 and then choose /mnt/disk2 as 'mount point' on diskdrake. From now on, every file you create in /mnt/disk2 and subdirs will be written on your secondary disk Many packages spread their files in many directories: /etc for configuration files, /usr/share/doc for documentation, and so on, so its difficult to create a single mount point to completely cover the installation of a package, unless you don't make some heavvy modifications on his structure... Many sites creates a separate partition for /home, but is useful only if you have many users or your personal files are very big
AhmedM : 01/10/02 10:46 PM : More info provided -   I did ... thanks. Now, How can I install applications of that drive? As you can see I am windows user and "I have seen the light" I start to believe in LINUX power, but I stille need some help (if I copied the installation files to disk2 and uncompress the they will be installed on it? And, if I have CD withthe applications how can I install the on disk2? Thanks again for your time and help. Mohamed.
AhmedM : 01/10/02 10:47 PM : More info provided -   I did ... thanks. Now, How can I install applications of that drive? As you can see I am windows user and "I have seen the light" I start to believe in LINUX power, but I stille need some help (if I copied the installation files to disk2 and uncompress the they will be installed on it? And, if I have CD withthe applications how can I install the on disk2? Thanks again for your time and help. Mohamed.
AhmedM : 01/10/02 10:48 PM : More info provided -   I did ... thanks. Now, How can I install applications of that drive? As you can see I am windows user and "I have seen the light" I start to believe in LINUX power, but I stille need some help (if I copied the installation files to disk2 and uncompress the they will be installed on it? And, if I have CD withthe applications how can I install the on disk2? Thanks again for your time and help. Mohamed.
tensor : 01/10/02 11:16 PM : Reply received -   UNIX (and Linux) see all disks as a single tree (is like you, instead of having C: and D: under windows, had C: and C:/disk2). When you save a file on C:/doc the file is written to subdir /doc of disk 1, when you write to c:/disk2/anotherdir/ you write on subdir /anotherdir of disk 2 (A clearer explanation can be found on http://www.mandrakeuser.org/docs/mdoc/ref/fs-and-mntpoints.html) Unfortunately, many packages spread their files onto different directories: some files go into /usr/share/doc/, others into /etc and /var/ and so on Thus, is difficult to install all files of a package on a single disk. Some packages allow you to relocate them to another directory. just use the --relocate option of rpm (see man rpm for more informations) You can also mount your secondary drive onto some common directory (/usr as an example) to make a good chunk of your files go into the 2th disk. Since you have already some files here, you need to make it a multi stage process: make a rescue floppy jump to single user mode with telinit 1 mount your 2th disk as /mnt/disk2 copy all files from /usr to /mnt/disk2 (see http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/Hard-Disk-Upgrade/copy.html for the commands to use) unmount the 2th disk and re-mount as /usr changing /etc/fstab (this hides the old /usr, but don't destroys it, so if something goes wrong you can just unmount the 2th disk to restore your old setup) return to multiuser mode (telinit 5) and check that all is working well - run mount without arguments to confirm your disk is really mounted as /usr When you are satisfied, return to single user mode, unmount 2th disk, empty the old usr directory, then remount the 2th disk
AhmedM : 03/10/02 03:50 PM : Incident closed -

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