Mount to second hard drive

[Nomura]

In my computer, I added a second hard drive to install Ubuntu on, so I had one with that and one with Windows XP on it. I want to be able to access files on the Windows drive from Linux, but all the tips I got from other threads and people haven't worked. As far as I can tell, Linux doesn't recognize that there's another drive at all. Any ideas?

[hybrid]

In my computer, I added a second hard drive to install Ubuntu on, so I had one with that and one with Windows XP on it. I want to be able to access files on the Windows drive from Linux, but all the tips I got from other threads and people haven't worked. As far as I can tell, Linux doesn't recognize that there's another drive at all. Any ideas?

 

OK, let's start by seeing if Linux is seeing the disk at all. It is likely that it sees the disk exists, but hasn't 'mounted' any of the partitions, so they are not showing up for you to use within Linux.

 

You don't say where you've already looked, so forgive me if this starts with the very basics.

 

First of all, do you see any drives under the Places menu? You may see labelled entries, or you might see something like xxGB Media. If there's something there, try clicking on that to mount the drive. It should then show up in a file browser window so you can access your files.

 

If that shows nothing, we can then look to see at a more low level what has been recognised and try and access your drive a different way.

[Nomura]

I've looked in the places menu, but there's only the usual (filesystem, music, documents, etc.). There's no other drives there.

[hybrid]

I've looked in the places menu, but there's only the usual (filesystem, music, documents, etc.). There's no other drives there.

 

OK, if you go to the Ubuntu Software Centre (or Add/Remove Applications in older versions), search for gparted. Install that program, then launch it.

 

Once the program has started up and scanned your disks, at the top right of the GParted window, there should be a drop-down list with the disks that Linux can see (probably labelled /dev/sda, /dev/sdb and so on). What do you see in that list?

[Dungeon-Dave]

A couple of quick commands to try:

 

"dmesg" = diagnostic messages. You may get a load of stuff flying up the screen, so best pipe it through "more" (dmesg | more). Don't try to make a great deal of sense of everything there, but there should be some info about what hardware is detected... hopefully, you'll see the disk there.

 

"fdisk -l" = list partitions that Linux can see (yah, that's minus-ell, not a one!). If that one *does* work then you should see partitions on the second disk as /dev/sdb1, /dev/sdb2 etc...

 

If that second bit works, post the output here and I (or someone else) can post commands used to mount the disk.

 

Other point: does the BIOS see the disk first? If not, you may have two master devices on the same bus (for PATA stuff)

[Nomura]

A couple of quick commands to try:

 

"dmesg" = diagnostic messages. You may get a load of stuff flying up the screen, so best pipe it through "more" (dmesg | more). Don't try to make a great deal of sense of everything there, but there should be some info about what hardware is detected... hopefully, you'll see the disk there.

 

"fdisk -l" = list partitions that Linux can see (yah, that's minus-ell, not a one!). If that one *does* work then you should see partitions on the second disk as /dev/sdb1, /dev/sdb2 etc...

 

If that second bit works, post the output here and I (or someone else) can post commands used to mount the disk.

 

Other point: does the BIOS see the disk first? If not, you may have two master devices on the same bus (for PATA stuff)

 

For dmesg, it said it only saw the one that's running, and fdisk -l didn't work at all. I think it's crashed, because when I restart the computer and tell it to boot Windows, it either says "Operating System not found" or just stays black with a single cursor and doesn't let me type anything.