Re: [gentoo-user] mount: "special device /dev/hdc does not exist". What does this mean?

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hi, Daniel

On Sat, Jul 19, 2008 at 09:11:09PM +0200, Daniel Pielmeier wrote:
> Alan Mackenzie schrieb:
> >Hi, Gentoo?

> >I've a newly installed system, now working with my own special
> >optimiesed keyboard layout.  :-)

> >However, I can't access my DVD drives.  I know at least one of them
> >works, because I installed Gentoo from it.

> >When I do

> >   mount -tiso9660 /dev/hdc /cdrom

> >, it comes back with "special device /dev/hdc does not exist".  And yes,
> >there was a CD in the drive, and /cdrom exists.

> Do you mean

> mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdc /cdrom

Maybe.  Is that different?

> >What does "special device" mean here?  Does it mean the physcial
> >hardware, the controller chip, the directory entry /dev/hdc, the driver
> >in the kernel, or what?  What is "special" about my DVD writer?

> It means the directory entry /dev/hdc.

OK.

> >Well, to answer some of my questions, I was missing a /dev/hdc, so I
> >made one with

> ># mknod /dev/hdc b 22 0

> >.  This didn't help one iota.  I had a look at dmesg, but there was no
> >mention of hdc in it.  (It did mention hdg, hdh, where my main hard
> >drives are (don't ask!)).

> Can't resist what is on hd{a-f}

Nothing on hd[abef], a DVD writer on hdc and a DVD reader on hdd.  My PC
was built in 2001, and the 2 "onboard" IDE ports are "ordinary" IDE,
whereas the two IDE ports "stuck on the side" do UDMA66.

> >My kernel is an up to date linux-2.6.25-gentoo-r6.  I _think_ it's got
> >all the needed options set in the configuration.  Can anybody suggest
> >how to get my system to recognise my DVD drives?

> >Thanks in advance!


> What kind of DVD writer do you have maybe it is sata or scsi, and it 
> wiil appear under /dev/srX or /dev/sgX. Or if you use the new libata 
> library in the kernel even IDE devices are under /dev/srX or /dev/sgX.

No, the box is no longer young, and contains no SATA or SCSI bits at all.
I'm just going away to see if I've got any /dev/s[gr]X on the box. ....

No, I've got no /dev/s[gr]X at all.

Could it be that the kernel has looked at hd[ab], found nothing there,
and therefore decided "it's not worth the bother even looking at
hd[cd]"?

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).