Setup additional harddrive

[williammanda]

I have installed an additional harddrive to my system which has a total of two harddrives. What steps are needed to start using the 2nd harddrive?
Thanks

[freymann]

I have installed an additional harddrive to my system which has a total of two harddrives. What steps are needed to start using the 2nd harddrive?

 Did you use fdisk on the new drive to give it a media type? Like Linux, or ext3 for example?

 I don't think the system will see it until that is done.

 I tend to boot up with a Ubuntu 7.10 LiveCD and use GParted to initialize the drive, then boot back up into LinuxMCE and let it ask you to use the new drive. There's another thread that was started right before/after your post that talks about the same type of thing, with a link in the wiki to how media files are handled.

[williammanda]

I tend to boot up with a Ubuntu 7.10 LiveCD and use GParted to initialize the drive, then boot back up into LinuxMCE and let it ask you to use the new drive. There's another thread that was started right before/after your post that talks about the same type of thing, with a link in the wiki to how media files are handled.

I wasn't of the process to get a hard drive ready for use. The distros always took care of that during the installation. Is it the best to format the hard drive using the live CD? Or is there some problem already loaded that can be used? The link on the other post only info for the file structure.
Thanks

[freymann]

I wasn't of the process to get a hard drive ready for use. The distros always took care of that during the installation. Is it the best to format the hard drive using the live CD? Or is there some problem already loaded that can be used? The link on the other post only info for the file structure.

 Are you going to use them as standalone drives or in the software raid under LinuxMCE?

 I don't know what state the drives should be in for raid under LMCE, I've never done that. I'm sure there's info to be found by searching the wiki and forums on that one.

 If you want to use them as standalone drives, the easiest way I know to set them up is to boot into the Ubuntu LiveCD and run the partition editor off the System menu. Be damn careful you are playing with your spare drives, not your main drive!!

 In the partition manager, you can select the drive, and then create a partition and flag it as ext3 and it will do the preparation for you.

 You can do this from the command line too, but I find the graphical interface easier to deal with.

[williammanda]

I used the Live CD & GParted. Worked out great. Thanks for the help!

[Stutch]

Do you have to mount the hard drive in order for LinuxMCE to see it, or will it be detected and utilized automatically?

[colinjones]

never mount anything manually in LMCE, you _will_ break it! It will detect the drive automatically and ask what you want to do with it. If it doesn't then you have some other problem you need to fix so that it does, but never mount manually...

[Stutch]

That is what I figured... so I have 6 terabyte hard drives, formatted ex3, however I dont see them.  (I did not attempt to mount them )

Any ideas?

[Stutch]

never mount anything manually in LMCE, you _will_ break it! It will detect the drive automatically and ask what you want to do with it. If it doesn't then you have some other problem you need to fix so that it does, but never mount manually...

I have to do the CD install path in order to get LinuxMCE functioning. (Driver support for my Raid controller.)   I guess my question should be, do I need to partition and format the additional hard drives when I initially set up Kubuntu, or do I just leave them without partitions?

I have attempted to install multiple times, using various methods and I am having issues with these drives.  Your assistance is  greatly appreciated.

[colinjones]

hmm  are you saying you have 6 x 1TB drives, and they are all connected to your core (SATA?)

I dont know enough about troubleshooting in Linux for drives to advise your next step, but there are plenty of people in the forums that do. The only comments I would make are 1) they aren't a RAID/volume set or something else like that are they? They are all independent drives?  2) you have gone into your BIOS and enabled those SATA ports/drives haven't you? By default they will usually be disabled, you need to enable them and set them to auto otherwise linux wont even see them...

[colinjones]

never mount anything manually in LMCE, you _will_ break it! It will detect the drive automatically and ask what you want to do with it. If it doesn't then you have some other problem you need to fix so that it does, but never mount manually...

I have to do the CD install path in order to get LinuxMCE functioning. (Driver support for my Raid controller.)   I guess my question should be, do I need to partition and format the additional hard drives when I initially set up Kubuntu, or do I just leave them without partitions?

I have attempted to install multiple times, using various methods and I am having issues with these drives.  Your assistance is  greatly appreciated.

oh, I'm confused now... I thought they were already partitioned and formatted (I assumed they had media on them, and that's the next point, but we'll get to that!)

I'm assuming that LMCE will only "detect" the drives if there is a valid filesystem on them otherwise there would be nothing to "detect", but that's just an assumption. Also, I note you mention a RAID controller. Have you set these up in a hardware (non-LMCE) RAID or do you intend to? I strongly suggest that you research RAID on these forums as you will likely find that you aren't going to get much support unless you use the built-in LMCE RAID system...

[Stutch]

Wow, thank you for the speedy reply colinjones.

Technically speaking I have 8 terabyte drives in a hardware raid 6 configuration. (see my other poste here: http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=6145.0 )

My raid card then carves the single raid disk into several 1 terabyte luns, which are in turn presented to the operating system as individual drives.  I do this because when I have it as a single 6 TB drive, the OS has all kinds of issues.  If I install Kubuntu, I can mount all the drives, partition, and format them... however, I am unsure of what steps I should do to get Linux MCE to see them.

I have tried partitioning and formatting them within Kubuntu and then installing LinuxMCE.   That didn't work.

So how should I go about making these drives avaialbe to Linux MCE?  What is the standard way of adding additional drives? 

[Stutch]

This is a fresh build system.  There is no media on the drives yet, I am just trying to get my core set up.

I have a hybrid system up and running, and after about a month of research, I figured is was time to build a beastly core to store all my DVD movies on.

So, lets say that I wipe this box and start over again.  I'll start off by installing Kubuntu, and then should I partition and format the other 5 drives? 

After that can I install LinuxMCE on the system?

[colinjones]

I see... outta my range of knowledge as far as LMCE goes, but theoretically as long as the LUNs are visible to LMCE, it should trigger the pnp process automatically to add them. I guess there are LUNs and there are LUNs (certainly in the SAN space this is the case, and how transparent they actually are can vary), perhaps they are not presenting to the OS in the way it is expecting.

You didn't say if they are SATA. If so, and there is no data on them, pull one out of the RAID and plug it directly into a SATA port as a standalone drive on the motherboard. Partition/format it - LMCE should detect it automatically, at least that will test if the pnp system is working properly for you. Maybe a case of a setting on the RAID controller to change how they present?

Gotta stop typing now, sorry - I broke both my hands 2 days ago and typing (pecking!) is extremely painful!

[Stutch]

Thank you for the advise colin. Yes, these are all SATA hard drives, with no date on them.   I will reinstall Kubuntu one more time, and have the drives partitioned and formated before installing LinuxMCE.

I will also try plugging on of the unformatted drives into the system to see how it reacts.

Broken hands?  Wow.  You are way too dedicated