Question: move disk from linux machine to windows...

Main Page | Report this Page

Linux Forum Index » Linux Hardware » Question: move disk from linux machine to windows...

Page 1 of 2 Goto page 1, 2 Next

Question: move disk from linux machine to windows...

Author

Message

1 12...

Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 2:25 pm

Guest

Hi,

I just got a retired Linux machine which has 2 hard drives. I want to
detach the 2nd drive and install it on a windows machine as the 2nd
drive on the windows machine.

I have the following questions:

1. How do I know the type of the drive I want to move? For my limited
hardware knowledge, I know there are SATA drive and IDE drive and
maybe others. The the windows machine is of type SATA, I knew this
from checking the system info.

I print out /proc/diskstats, it does not tell me the disk type.

2. After I remove the drive on the linux machine, should I do
something or Linux can automatically adjust the change? The linux is
Redhat 3.4.6-2 and kernel version is 2.6.9-42.

Thanks a lot.

david...

Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 3:12 pm

Guest

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:25:22 -0700, 1 12 rearranged some electrons to say:

Quote:

Hi,

I just got a retired Linux machine which has 2 hard drives. I want to
detach the 2nd drive and install it on a windows machine as the 2nd
drive on the windows machine.

I have the following questions:

1. How do I know the type of the drive I want to move? For my limited
hardware knowledge, I know there are SATA drive and IDE drive and maybe
others. The the windows machine is of type SATA, I knew this from
checking the system info.

I print out /proc/diskstats, it does not tell me the disk type.

2. After I remove the drive on the linux machine, should I do something
or Linux can automatically adjust the change? The linux is Redhat
3.4.6-2 and kernel version is 2.6.9-42.

Thanks a lot.

Windows won't be able to read the ext2 disk format. If the machine is
old, it is likely IDE. If the drive you remove has the /boot or /
partition on it, the Linux box won't run anymore. If it has anything
mount point that Linux is looking for it won't run correctly. You'll
need to run the 'mount' command to see which drive is mounted where.

Bob Tennent...

Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 3:14 pm

Guest

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:25:22 -0700 (PDT), 1 12 wrote:

Quote:

I just got a retired Linux machine which has 2 hard drives. I want to
detach the 2nd drive and install it on a windows machine as the 2nd
drive on the windows machine.

I have the following questions:

1. How do I know the type of the drive I want to move? For my limited
hardware knowledge, I know there are SATA drive and IDE drive and
maybe others. The the windows machine is of type SATA, I knew this
from checking the system info.

I print out /proc/diskstats, it does not tell me the disk type.

Yes it does. Does it give stats for sda/sdb or hda/hdb? The former are
SATA, the latter are IDE.

Quote:

2. After I remove the drive on the linux machine, should I do
something or Linux can automatically adjust the change? The linux is
Redhat 3.4.6-2 and kernel version is 2.6.9-42.

You should edit /etc/fstab to delete the line(s) that involve the drive
you're removing. But whether the machine will work properly or even boot
after you remove the drive depends on what's on the drive.

Bob T.

1 12...

Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 3:46 pm

Guest

On Sep 21, 7:21 pm, Wanna-Be Sys Admin <sysad... at (no spam) example.com> wrote:

Quote:

1 12 wrote:
Hi,

I just got a retired Linux machine which has 2 hard drives. I want to
detach the 2nd drive and install it on a windows machine as the 2nd
drive on the windows machine.

I have the following questions:

1. How do I know the type of the drive I want to move? For my limited
hardware knowledge, I know there are SATA drive and IDE drive and
maybe others. The the windows machine is of type SATA, I knew this
from checking the system info.

I print out /proc/diskstats, it does not tell me the disk type.

2. After I remove the drive on the linux machine, should I do
something or Linux can automatically adjust the change? The linux is
Redhat 3.4.6-2 and kernel version is 2.6.9-42.

Thanks a lot.

Are you using the second drive for anything that the Linux install
running now will need? It sounds like you're not. How old is "old"
for the system? Anyway, you can use kudzu -p to see the output showing
the drive type (IDE/SATA/SCSI), or just knowing one is IDE and another
might be SATA (not SCSI), you can see if it starts with an "s" instead
of an "h" (sda = sata, hda = ide, for example). Windows can't read the
Linux partition, so are you planning to format the drive? If not, and
you just want to move the disk with the data, you could consider (if
you have the room), copying the data over to the other drive on the
system, reformatting the drive/partition on the one you plan to move to
FAT/NTFS or whatever (something Windows can read), copy/move the data
back and then add it to the Windows system. You will likely have to
remove any auto-mount lines in /etc/fstab if you have the other drive
set to mount on boot. I'm unsure if I understood your question fully
though.
--
Not really a wanna-be, but I don't know everything.

Hi,
Thanks a lot for the replies.

I checked the mount, it is /dev/hdb1, so this means it is IDE hard
drive. This drive is purely a data disk, I was told the linux boot up
has nothing to do with this disk. So it should be safe for me to
remove the drive.

But now it comes 2 other questions:

1. I can not edit /etc/fstab as it requires root status. I really do
not want to erase the whole disk and re-install Linux, that is too
much for me. How should I do now? I tried running fstab-sync, it says
command not found.

2. My windows machine's current drive is SATA, am I hosed? I can not
have 2 types of hard drives on one machine, is that right?

Wanna-Be Sys Admin...

Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 7:21 pm

Guest

1 12 wrote:

Quote:

Are you using the second drive for anything that the Linux install
running now will need? It sounds like you're not. How old is "old"
for the system? Anyway, you can use kudzu -p to see the output showing
the drive type (IDE/SATA/SCSI), or just knowing one is IDE and another
might be SATA (not SCSI), you can see if it starts with an "s" instead
of an "h" (sda = sata, hda = ide, for example). Windows can't read the
Linux partition, so are you planning to format the drive? If not, and
you just want to move the disk with the data, you could consider (if
you have the room), copying the data over to the other drive on the
system, reformatting the drive/partition on the one you plan to move to
FAT/NTFS or whatever (something Windows can read), copy/move the data
back and then add it to the Windows system. You will likely have to
remove any auto-mount lines in /etc/fstab if you have the other drive
set to mount on boot. I'm unsure if I understood your question fully
though.
--
Not really a wanna-be, but I don't know everything.

David W. Hodgins...

Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:02 pm

Guest

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:14:18 -0400, Bob Tennent <BobT at (no spam) cs.queensu.ca> wrote:

Quote:

Yes it does. Does it give stats for sda/sdb or hda/hdb? The former are
SATA, the latter are IDE.

That used to be a given, but is no longer true. The libata module in
current kernels will assign ide drives as sd? instead of hd?, with
the max partition being 15.

Mandriva linux switched with the 2009.0 release. Before I could install
it I had to move things around, and remove hda16 and hda17, so that when
I booted the newly installed version, the last partition on the drive
was sda15. Thank you LVM :-)

Regards, Dave Hodgins

--
Change nomail.afraid.org to ody.ca to reply by email.
(nomail.afraid.org has been set up specifically for
use in usenet. Feel free to use it yourself.)

ray...

Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:09 pm

Guest

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:46:52 -0700, 1 12 wrote:

Quote:

On Sep 21, 7:21Â pm, Wanna-Be Sys Admin <sysad... at (no spam) example.com> wrote:
1 12 wrote:
Hi,

I just got a retired Linux machine which has 2 hard drives. I want to
detach the 2nd drive and install it on a windows machine as the 2nd
drive on the windows machine.

I have the following questions:

1. How do I know the type of the drive I want to move? For my limited
hardware knowledge, I know there are SATA drive and IDE drive and
maybe others. The the windows machine is of type SATA, I knew this
from checking the system info.

Â Â I print out /proc/diskstats, it does not tell me the disk type.

2. After I remove the drive on the linux machine, should I do
something or Linux can automatically adjust the change? The linux is
Redhat 3.4.6-2 and kernel version is 2.6.9-42.

Thanks a lot.

Are you using the second drive for anything that the Linux install
running now will need? Â It sounds like you're not. Â How old is "old"
for the system? Â Anyway, you can use kudzu -p to see the output showing
the drive type (IDE/SATA/SCSI), or just knowing one is IDE and another
might be SATA (not SCSI), you can see if it starts with an "s" instead
of an "h" (sda = sata, hda = ide, for example). Â Windows can't read the
Linux partition, so are you planning to format the drive? Â If not, and
you just want to move the disk with the data, you could consider (if
you have the room), copying the data over to the other drive on the
system, reformatting the drive/partition on the one you plan to move to
FAT/NTFS or whatever (something Windows can read), copy/move the data
back and then add it to the Windows system. Â You will likely have to
remove any auto-mount lines in /etc/fstab if you have the other drive
set to mount on boot. Â I'm unsure if I understood your question fully
though.
--
Not really a wanna-be, but I don't know everything.

Hi,
Thanks a lot for the replies.

I checked the mount, it is /dev/hdb1, so this means it is IDE hard
drive. This drive is purely a data disk, I was told the linux boot up
has nothing to do with this disk. So it should be safe for me to remove
the drive.

But now it comes 2 other questions:

1. I can not edit /etc/fstab as it requires root status. I really do not
want to erase the whole disk and re-install Linux, that is too much for
me. How should I do now? I tried running fstab-sync, it says command not
found.

You should have access to root commands - either with a root account or
sudo - if not, IMHO - it's not properly set up (assuming you are the sole
or main user).

Quote:

2. My windows machine's current drive is SATA, am I hosed? I can not
have 2 types of hard drives on one machine, is that right?

Many machines with SATA connectors also have IDE connectors too - yes you
can use both types on one machine.

Wanna-Be Sys Admin...

Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 11:01 pm

Guest

1 12 wrote:

....

Quote:

No matter the type of drive, both are just as safe to remove (you can
always re-add it). It's not like they are hot swappable drives anyway.

Quote:

But now it comes 2 other questions:

1. I can not edit /etc/fstab as it requires root status. I really do
not want to erase the whole disk and re-install Linux, that is too
much for me. How should I do now? I tried running fstab-sync, it says
command not found.

Well, you should have root access to the system if you have physical
access to remove a drive. Is the data drive even in fstab anyway? If
not, no worries. If it is, it'll still boot, just not mount a drive
that doesn't exist (or that it can't access). If the drive were to be
bad and found and want to do an extensive fsck, that would be a
different story, otherwise a secondary drive shouldn't prevent it from
booting and working normally in every other regard. Anyway, you have
no reason to move the drive to a Windows system if you don't reformat
it, because Windows can't read ext2/ext3/reiser, etc. So, you'll have
to wipe the disk, or use some tool to change the size of the partition,
keep the Linux formatted partition there and create a larger one you
can use, maybe making that FAT/NTFS or whatever and copy the data to
the second partition so Windows can read it. But, really, I don't see
the difference, or the point of keeping it formatted for Linux that
Windows can't read, if you plan to add the drive to a Windows system?
I'm confused about that. As for copying the data to Windows, you can
always use FTP/sFTP, or some other protocol that Windows understands
and copy to or from, but I still fail to understand the reason of
having a drive in a Windows system that Windows can't see.

Quote:

2. My windows machine's current drive is SATA, am I hosed? I can not
have 2 types of hard drives on one machine, is that right?

I'd imagine your Windows system could take a normal IDE drive, most
can/do. Motherboards are always changing though, and some only support
the new PCI slots, new memory, new CPUs (of course), and newer drives,
so it would have to be a really old drive to not be supported in any
situation I've ever seen. Yes, you can have two types of drives on the
same system, provided the hardware supports it (it should) and the
software (that should definitely).
--
Not really a wanna-be, but I don't know everything.

David W. Hodgins...

Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 12:12 am

Guest

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:46:52 -0400, 1 12 <1230987za at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:

Quote:

I checked the mount, it is /dev/hdb1, so this means it is IDE hard
drive. This drive is purely a data disk, I was told the linux boot up
has nothing to do with this disk. So it should be safe for me to
remove the drive.

If the fstab entry for the drive causes fsck to be run, removing it may
stop the system from booting into run level 3 (multi user text mode
login, or run level 5 (multi user gui login), and force it into run
level 1 (single user, text mode).

Quote:

1. I can not edit /etc/fstab as it requires root status. I really do

If the problem is not knowing the root password, try booting into
run level 1, and then changing the root password.

If run level 1 is password protected, use a live cd to boot into
linux, and then mount the / filesystem from the hd, chroot to the
directory you've mounted it under, and then use the passwd command
to change the root password.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

--
Change nomail.afraid.org to ody.ca to reply by email.
(nomail.afraid.org has been set up specifically for
use in usenet. Feel free to use it yourself.)

DenverD...

Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 12:14 am

Guest

Quote:

I just got a retired Linux machine which has 2 hard drives. I want to
detach the 2nd drive and install it on a windows machine as the 2nd
drive on the windows machine.

what is your intention? that is:

1. if it is your intention to physically place a drive from the Linux
machine into the Windows machine and then have both operating systems
on the same machine: forget that! that won't work (well, you _can_
have both on the same machine but not simply by moving a Linux drive
into a windows machine)

there are several reasons this is true....which i won't go into except
to say that (for example) the Linux machine and the windows machine
probably have different graphics systems....and, even if you could
boot Linux, it would probably only give you a solid black screen..

anyway, apparently you don't how to tell which of the two drives in
the Linux machine actually has the operating system and its booting
capability on it...

finally, if you were 100% lucky and the Windows machine is an exact
hardware clone of the Linux machine, AND you could try inserting each
hard drive until you found the one with the Linux boot and system, and
you placed it into the machine....and, you were lucky enough to figure
out how change the BIOS to make that disk the first to boot...THEN,
after all that luck you would have a Linux system which couldn't find
its data..

AND, unless and until you 'taught' the Linux boot mechanism about how
to and where to find the windows boot mechanism you would be able to
boot windows again (which is not really a bad thing)..

2. however, you can wipe the data off that disk and use it as
additional space, after formating it with file system format that
windows can use..

OR which is probably what i'd do: you could wipe it clean, place it in
the windows machine and _install_ a modern (that rhel 3.4x is FIVE
years old, and the kernel around FOUR years old..) Linux distribution
on it and as you do, elect to make it a dual boot machine able, at
start up to select either Linux _or_ windows..

Quote:

2. After I remove the drive on the linux machine, should I do
something or Linux can automatically adjust the change?

no, it will not be anywhere near automatic...and, a full new install
will probably be easier for you than trying to make what you have work
(if for no other reason than the 'drivers' (kernel modules) which
_were_ installed to match the hardware of the Linux machine will all
have to be changed...a pro might be able to do that one driver/module
at a time, i'd want to do a new install..

--
DenverD (Linux Counter 282315) via Thunderbird 3.0.1-1.1, KDE 3.5.7,
openSUSE Linux 10.3, 2.6.22.19-0.4-default #1 SMP i686 athlon

Aragorn...

Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 6:03 am

Guest

On Tuesday 22 September 2009 04:02, someone identifying as *David W.
Hodgins* wrote in /comp.os.linux.hardware:/

Quote:

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:14:18 -0400, Bob Tennent <BobT at (no spam) cs.queensu.ca
wrote:

Yes it does. Does it give stats for sda/sdb or hda/hdb? The former
are SATA, the latter are IDE.

That used to be a given, but is no longer true. The libata module in
current kernels will assign ide drives as sd? instead of hd?, with
the max partition being 15.

Yes, but that unification only started occurring as of kernel 2.6.25 or
something, or possibly a little earlier. The OP is still using a 2.6.9
kernel, so PATA drives will still be represented as */dev/hd?* on his
machine. ;-)

--
*Aragorn*
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)

General Schvantzkoph...

Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 8:49 am

Guest

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:25:22 -0700, 1 12 wrote:

Quote:

Hi,

I just got a retired Linux machine which has 2 hard drives. I want to
detach the 2nd drive and install it on a windows machine as the 2nd
drive on the windows machine.

I have the following questions:

1. How do I know the type of the drive I want to move? For my limited
hardware knowledge, I know there are SATA drive and IDE drive and maybe
others. The the windows machine is of type SATA, I knew this from
checking the system info.

I print out /proc/diskstats, it does not tell me the disk type.

2. After I remove the drive on the linux machine, should I do something
or Linux can automatically adjust the change? The linux is Redhat
3.4.6-2 and kernel version is 2.6.9-42.

Thanks a lot.

SATA cables are narrow, IDE cables are wide, when you open the box it
will be obvious what type of drives you have. You didn't say what kind of
machine this was, if it's a server the drives might be SCSI or SAS
(Serial Attached SCSI) rather than IDE or SATA. If they are SCSI or SAS
drives you won't be able to move them to the Windows box because that
machine is probably a desktop system which will only support SATA and
IDE. In any event the thing you need to do is to open both boxes, look at
the cables on the Linux machine and the available connectors on the
Windows box and find a match.

As for the Linux system, you should do a fresh install of Linux. The
current setup is optimized for the boxes old purpose. RHES 3 is very very
old, I assume the previous owners of the box had a reason for using it,
probably some piece of commercial software that you don't need or own. If
you want to stick with a version of Redhat Enterprise I would suggest
that you install CentOS 5.3 which is the free version of the current
version of RHES. If you want something more advanced than RHES then try
Fedora 11 or the latest Ubuntu.

DenverD...

Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 10:16 am

Guest

Wolfgang Draxinger wrote:

Quote:

Wrong! Modern Linux distributions auto-detect the installed hardware at
boot.

tell me how many times in your life have you considered red hat 3.4 a
modern linux system?

--
DenverD (Linux Counter 282315) via Thunderbird 3.0.1-1.1, KDE 3.5.7,
openSUSE Linux 10.3, 2.6.22.19-0.4-default #1 SMP i686 athlon

Wolfgang Draxinger...

Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 10:54 am

Guest

DenverD wrote:

Quote:

Wolfgang Draxinger wrote:
Wrong! Modern Linux distributions auto-detect the installed hardware at
boot.

tell me how many times in your life have you considered red hat 3.4 a
modern linux system?

It's recent enough, though the X server may refuse to start, and that's no
big deal. In fact I have here an old Slackware installation from ~2002
that's infestated about half a dozen different boxes in that way.

Wolfgang

DenverD...

Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 11:28 am

Guest

Quote:

It's recent enough, though the X server may refuse to start, and that's no
big deal.

no big deal for you (or me)..how about the guy who can't figure out
which partition has the *, who is asking the questions?

--
DenverD (Linux Counter 282315) via Thunderbird 3.0.1-1.1, KDE 3.5.7,
openSUSE Linux 10.3, 2.6.22.19-0.4-default #1 SMP i686 athlon

Page 1 of 2 Goto page 1, 2 Next

All times are GMT - 5 Hours The time now is Mon Dec 07, 2009 11:10 am Linux Forum Index