Hard Drives. - Page 2

entwisi · 29-01-2006, 09:39

Effectively yes, from a windows POV each partition is given its own letter so to most people it is seen as a 'seperate' hard disk.

Linux does filesystems in a far more logical way. everything starts at / (or root) there is a defined set of sub folders, some read only, some read/write. the list is bin, boot, dev, etc, home, lib, mnt, opt, proc, root, sbin, sys, tmp, usr, var

You can 'mount' a partition anywhere on the tree, so for example, under /home is where people have their 'My Documents' so /home/entwisi is mine, /home/buttonsmum is Julie's. There is no reason that my 'folder' has to be on the same partition as julies.

Its sounds a bit strange to people who have only ever used Windows but in reality it is far easier to manage. e.g. lets say /home is nearly full with mine and Julies stuff, and I want to create an account for Siobhan. I can just stick another disk in and put her account on there and just 'mount' it at /home/siobhan. Job done, no copying of data here there or anywhere.

Madhatter · 29-01-2006, 16:57

Never used linux. I bought a disk once, gaming edition and never installed it, I didn't think you could have two opperating systems on the same machine. It's probably too old to use now, but I understand its free anyway.

entwisi · 29-01-2006, 19:04

Windows doesn't like you having two OS's Linux however will happily coexist with anything.

Neil · 29-01-2006, 19:13

I have just starting copying 80GB of recorded movies from my Dreambox which is Linux based to my PC via FTP. Is there a windows utility to allow windows to read a Linux formatted drive?

entwisi · 29-01-2006, 19:18

Depends what filesystem you ar eusing under linux. ext2/3 can be read. There is some support for ReiserFS as well. One other option is to set up Samba on teh linux box and expose the drives as shares. Windows can then see the files just like any other shared drives.

Neil · 29-01-2006, 19:21

ext3 I think. I don't want to mess with the DReambox while it is very busy ftp ing. It does support samba but I have never got round to setting it up. It is copying faster than I thought. 80 GB and it is saying about 2 hours. When I swop the Hard Drive in the Dreambox I will have to copy it back.

entwisi · 29-01-2006, 20:20

Upgrading it eh?

Get samba setup, its not that hard, shout if you need help

entwisi · 29-01-2006, 20:21

Just a thought, can teh dreambox not support two HDs internaly? Even if it meant leaving teh case of whislt you copied everything across?

Neil · 29-01-2006, 20:47

No it can only take 1 HD. The other ide channel has a compact flash reader permantly on it.

entwisi · 30-01-2006, 07:56

IDE Channels support two devices each or do you mean there is only one ide channel with disk as master and cf as slave?

Neil · 30-01-2006, 08:22

yep 1 channel. Maybe when I have Linux on my my machine I will be able to copy from the Dreambox drive to my PC using my USB2 to IDE adapter

entwisi · 30-01-2006, 08:56

To quote the ad, 'there is another way!'

What filesystem do you use under Windows? NTFS or FAT?

Definately if FAT you could just boot a LiveCD such as knoppix and use your USB/IDE adaptor. NTFS is slightly more risky, I would want to dump it onto an empty partition if possible just to be safe(or ghost the drive first. NTFS write support is out there but is not as advanced in development as FAT support.

Neil · 30-01-2006, 20:07

NTFS. So are you telling me I wont be able to access the 180GB NTFS partition I have created when I stick Linux on the 16GB I have unused at the moment? I have also been toying with running Linux on my server ish machine that has 3 120GB NTFS drives in it

harwood red · 30-01-2006, 20:09

??????? sorry just thought I would lighten the thread with a blonde moment, hee hee

Neil · 30-01-2006, 20:24

Say something thick then