Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

JustinHoMi · Apr 3, 2005, 12:15 AM

Hey. What is the device name in /dev/ to access firewire hard drives? I have a drive with a bad partition map that won't mount, so I'm going to use dd to image it, but I need the device node name.

Anyways, any tips would be great.

Thanks!
Justin

JustinHoMi · Apr 3, 2005, 12:34 AM

alright, I found the /dev/disks* node, but I have a related question...

I also have a USB hd that has no filesystem on it, and when I plug it in nothing happens... it doesn't prompt me, and it doesn't create a device node. Any ideas on how to access and format this drive? I'd pop it in the computer, but it's a laptop!

Justin

utidjian · Apr 3, 2005, 12:00 PM

Originally posted by JustinHoMi:
alright, I found the /dev/disks* node, but I have a related question...

I also have a USB hd that has no filesystem on it, and when I plug it in nothing happens... it doesn't prompt me, and it doesn't create a device node. Any ideas on how to access and format this drive? I'd pop it in the computer, but it's a laptop!

Justin

You could try connecting it to a Windows or Linux PC, format it there, then perhaps the Mac will "see" the drive. Format it as FAT32.

Can you see the drive in Apple System Profiler or in Disk Utility?

JustinHoMi · Apr 3, 2005, 12:06 PM

I can see it in the profiler, but not the disk utility. If all else fails I will connect it to my linux box. Do you know if a Mac will read ext2/3 partitions natively? I probably don't have the hsf+ filesystem extensions installed in my kernel.

Justin

larkost · Apr 3, 2005, 03:52 PM

a) Don't look in /dev... ignore it altogether in MacOS X. It is there for legacy reasons only and drivers are not really encouraged to export anything to it. It will go away, and it is not dependable.

b) There is a driver for MacOS X. It is not part of the default install, or from Apple, but it is free. Do not think of it as a good filesystem for main partition, but rather as a way of transferring data back and forth.

c) If you are looking at recovering the drive, boot off of a CD and use Disk Utility. The next step after that is one of the commercial disk utilities that do not come from Norton...

utidjian · Apr 3, 2005, 11:41 PM

Originally posted by JustinHoMi:
I can see it in the profiler, but not the disk utility. If all else fails I will connect it to my linux box. Do you know if a Mac will read ext2/3 partitions natively? I probably don't have the hsf+ filesystem extensions installed in my kernel.

Justin

No, I don't think the Mac OS X will handle ext2/3 (not last I tried anyhow). However, my Fedora Core 3 system can mount a Mac OS X HFS+ firewire drive no problem.... it "just works".

larkost · Apr 5, 2005, 11:02 AM

Originally posted by utidjian:
No, I don't think the Mac OS X will handle ext2/3 (not last I tried anyhow). However, my Fedora Core 3 system can mount a Mac OS X HFS+ firewire drive no problem.... it "just works".

Sorry.. I missed a bit of typing... my second post was all about the ext2/3 driver for MacOS X.

utidjian · Apr 5, 2005, 01:42 PM

Originally posted by larkost:
Sorry.. I missed a bit of typing... my second post was all about the ext2/3 driver for MacOS X.

Yeah I posted mine a bit late. Anyhow... thanks for the link. That is good to know and I will give it a try soon.