Jonathan McDowell wrote:
On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 11:35:26PM +0000, Ian Thompson-Bell wrote:
nev young wrote:
You're missing the point. Linux doesn't recognise it at all. I can't format a drive if the system can't see it.
It may simply be that your Linux distro does not have NTFS support installed. have you checked this?
Unlike my older USB external drive that creates a device /dev/sdd1 on the desktop which I can then mount.
Not surprising because that was probably FAT rather than NTFS.
No, really, you're missing nev's point. What filesystem is on the drive is irrelevant if the raw devices nodes aren't even created. Getting /dev/sdd and /dev/sdd1 created when the device is plugged in is purely about Linux recognising that there's a new block device present on the SCSI subsystem and then being able to read the partition table correctly. Filesystem doesn't come into it until you actually try to mount the device.
Right. Forget everything !!! My wife went and got me one as a late xmas pressie! :-)
I plugged it in and it just worked. OK it comes as FAT32 but happily re-formats to ext3
If the case for the one I bought last year ever gets used is no longer an issue. Thanks for those who have spent time thinking about it and replying.
However, I wish to learn ! ==========================
As I see it when I connect the device: something detects the new hardware and creates the /dev/usb nodes something then assigns these as a device something assigns the device as a disk something mounts it. there has to be a device driver in there somewhere.
Can any one point me to a good reference so I can learn how it all hangs together?
It all seemed so much simpler back in the early 1980s when I was writing device drivers for a living. Have I forgotten everything I once knew or has it actually become much more complex?
nev