Linuxhelp > Mandrake 9.2 Hdd Installation Woes

pjdepasq

Jul 18 2004, 10:00 PM

Today, I was trying to install a Seagate 200Gb HDD into my Dell Optiplex running Mandrake 9.2.

In performing the installation, I noted that the device's block files were not created. So, I stumbled around trying to get the drive files set up.

My installation does not have the "MAKEDEV" script/program to help create them, so I attempted to use makedev and mknod to do so. In my bumbling (and lack of clear help from MDK), I managed to use makedev to create two odd directories of device files in /dev (/dev/hdb/<tons of device dirs> and /dev/--help). Though I can delete the contents of the directories and erase that portion of the tree, each reboot creates the dirs again (without the special file contents usually found after running makedev). I think this behavior (recreation of the dirs) comes via the 'devfsd' program, but I'm not sure how to make it stop re-creating these directories I wish to clear out all together.

Once I clear them out, I can try to deal with the mknod situation again to properly make the block files to get the drive working.

Can someone help me get rid of these files and point me to a decent HOW-TO to install a large IDE drive?

Thanks.

hughesjr

Jul 20 2004, 06:51 PM

As to removing the directories, take a look at the files in the directory /etc/makedev.d.

The command:

ls -lt should tell you which one changed last.

Take a look if any changed on the day you did the changes ... and see if you can see what is in there.

pjdepasq

Jul 20 2004, 06:56 PM

QUOTE (hughesjr @ Jul 20 2004, 07:51 PM)

As to removing the directories, take a look at the files in the directory /etc/makedev.d.

The command:

ls -lt should tell you which one changed last.

Take a look if any changed on the day you did the changes ... and see if you can see what is in there.

None changed. All are as they were delivered when MDK was installed.

CODE

drwxr-xr-x 61 root root 4096 Jul 20 18:07 ../
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 May 25 12:20 ./
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 530 Sep 17 2003 00macros.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1676 Sep 17 2003 ataraid.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 13408 Sep 17 2003 cciss.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 75 Sep 17 2003 cdrom.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 50752 Sep 17 2003 dac960.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 125 Sep 17 2003 gfx_cards.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 141 Sep 17 2003 ia64.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 12896 Sep 17 2003 ida.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 215 Sep 17 2003 libraw1394.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 55412 Sep 17 2003 linux-2.4.x.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1504 Sep 17 2003 mandrake.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 682 Sep 17 2003 mouse.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2952 Sep 17 2003 sound.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 235 Sep 17 2003 std.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1493 Sep 17 2003 usb.conf

The man page for makedev indicates the some information is stored in /dev/.devfsd:

CODE

[root@cs makedev.d]# l /dev/.devfsd
crw------- 1 root root 8, 0 Dec 31 1969 /dev/.devfsd

But since it's of size zero, I can't read anything useful from it (the file). Given the major/minor number on the file, I'm curious as to where that information is being stored...