About mount the volumn

[peterchu]

I am not clear about the system volumn of linux , thx for suggestion

I have newly install a RH linux, there are below path is mounted ,

#df
/dev/sda7 2163504 551376 1607308 18% /
/dev/sda5 1135660 44112 948940 5% /usr
/dev/sda8 11072456 3690348 6870440 31% /var
/dev/sda6 11072456 204316 9456472 3% /tmp

I have create a new path at the root /db , and mount to the root as a static path , I tried mount it to /dev/sda1 ( mount /dev/sda1 /db ) , but I found that there are some files in these device path , and can't be display when type the command â dfâ , could suggest how can I mount it

[Stuart Browne · Accepted solution]

Is there actually a file system on '/dev/sda1' ?

What's the output of 'sfdisk -l /dev/sda' and 'file -s /dev/sda1' ?

This will help us tell you how to mount it properly.

[peterchu]

thx reply,

the below is the output of "/sbin/sfdisk -l /dev/sda" , if I want to add a path /db , what can I do ? thx

/dev/sda1 0+ 4 5- 40131 de IBM
/dev/sda2 5 331 327 3015214+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 * 332 356 25 420412+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 357 6636 6280 10233373+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 357+ 1630 1274- 10233373+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 1631+ 2904 1274- 10233373+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 2905+ 3165 261- 53412 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 3166+ 3296 131- 1052226 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 3297+ 3550 254- 2040223+ 82 Linux swap

[Stuart Browne]

What's the output of 'file -s /dev/sda1' ?

[peterchu]

# /usr/bin/file -s /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1: x86 boot sector

thx.

[Stuart Browne]

If I had to make a guess, this is a Dell system that you've installed on (or something similar) of which has a modified DOS partition with a different filesystem type.

I don't know if it will work, but try this:

mount -tmsdos /dev/sda1 /db

Do you actually know what's on this partition, or are you just mounting it to find out?

[peterchu]

I can mount to /dev/sda1 , but I found there are some dos files in there , like autoexec.bat, bootlog.txt , io.sys , can I remove it ? and if I want to create another directory at root like /files , what device path I need to mount , is it also mount to /dev/sda1 ?thx.

[Stuart Browne]

Ok. The files in there are the auto-recovery or system-tools partition.

When you boot up, you're probably being prompted about it. If you get rid of it, it will no longer work.

That being said, sure! You can toast it, do what you want with it! Make a new filesystem over the top of it (reccomended, as against using the filesystem that's on there), and treat it like any other partition (with an entry in '/etc/fstab' etc.).

[peterchu]

thx reply , I mount to it , but the /dev/sda1 only have very little space , how can I increase it ? thx.

[Mark Grant]

Any reason you can't use /dev/sda2 instead?

[peterchu]

thx ,

the /dev/sda2 is reserved for other path , what I want now is to increase the space size for the existing path , could suggest what can I do ? thx.

[peterchu]

If I think the /usr should not mount to /dev/sda5 , I want to mount to other device ( eg. /dev/sda2 ) , but I tried that I can't umount it , could suggest how can I change it ?

[Mark Grant]

I think you are going to have a lot of trouble increasing the size of the partition /dev/sda1 unless you have been using some form of logical volume management such as LVM.

However, all is not lost, you could start using LVM! Create a volume group containing /dev/sda1, add another spare partition to the same volume group and then create a logical volume/file system that spans the two partitions. Fior information on LVM look here

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/

With regard to your other problem, you probably can't unmount /usr because you have stuff using it already. You are best off going to single user mode in order to achieve this.