How to obtain systinfo without floppy

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by BillyPig, Feb 2, 2008.

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  1. BillyPig

    BillyPig Registered Member

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    Continuing from another thread in which I mentioned my problems trying to use the TI Rescue Disk, I was asked by Acronis to provide the "sysinfo" diagnostics. I tried to follow the procedures described (for saving the information to a flash drive), but came unstuck very early on. When I entered the cat /proc/partitions command, the output was somthing like this:

    8 0 983552 scsi/host0/bus0/lun0/disc
    8 0 983280 scsi/host0/bus0/lun0/part1

    I guess that this is the 1Gb flash drive (formatted for FAT32), but I can't work out how to mount it, based upon the example given.
    Can someone help with the correct syntax for this device ?

    I also mentioned a problem with my mouse and was aksed if it was a usb mouse. I suppose the answer is Yes: it is a ps2 mouse connected to a usb port. The connector will also support a keyboard, but I'm not using that. I guess I could try a usb mouse plugged in directly (I need to use the connector for windows as my m/b does not have a ps2 connector and I want to keep on using my beloved Logitech FX trackball).

    Billy Pig.
     
  2. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    Take a look at this post for saving sysinfo to a USB flashdrive.

    If these are the instructions you followed, can you post back with where you got stuck?
     
  3. K0LO

    K0LO Registered Member

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    I assume that you are following the instructions in this post from Acronis.

    Try:
    # mkdir /mnt/tmp
    # mount -t auto /devfs/scsi/host0/bus0/lun0/part1 /mnt/tmp
     
  4. BillyPig

    BillyPig Registered Member

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    Thanks for the replies; I have been experimenting a little, but I'm not much further. First the question about the procedure that I was following: it was NOT the one in the link from MudCrab's post, but it was very similar. One significant difference was that the mount command referred to a /dev.. folder, not a /devfs/... folder.

    The response to cat proc/partitions was:

    8 0 987135 scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0.disc
    8 1 98...... scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0.part1

    I then entered the mkdir command, followed by

    mount -t auto /devfs/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 /mnt/tmp

    to which the response was
    nls_cp437.0: no module by that name found

    I don't know if this is at all relevant, but I noticed this error message prior to entering these commands:

    $ /bin/insmod md_mod
    using /lib/modules/md_mod.0
    md: md driver 0.90.0, Adaptec md 0.1.0, MAX_MD_DEVS-256, MB_SB_DISKS=27
    md: Autodetect raid arrays
    attempt to access beyond end of device
    08:00, rw=0, want=0, limit=983552
    md: disabled device scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc, could not read superblock.
    md: could not read scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc's sb, not importing!
    md: autorun ...
    md: ...sutorun DONE.

    I hope I got that right - I copied it from a photo I took of my monitor.

    I'm not at all into linux so I'm not sure what that all means apart from the fact that it didn't seem very happy with the device. I tried a different flash drive (fat) and that didn't help.

    pig
     
  5. K0LO

    K0LO Registered Member

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    Billy:

    The error messages seem to be saying that something is being detected as a RAID array. ?? Do you have RAID disks on this machine?

    Instead of using "auto" in the mount command, if your flash drive is formatted as FAT16 or FAT32, try using "vfat" to specify mounting as a FAT filesystem:

    # mount -t vfat /devfs/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 /mnt/tmp
     
  6. BillyPig

    BillyPig Registered Member

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    k0lo,

    The motherboard (an ASUS p5K Wifi Delux) has 5 Sata connections that are raid-0 and raid-1 capable, but I am not using any of the SATA connectors and there are no SATA devices enabled in the BIOS. I'm just using a single IDE drive that I moved from an older machine. There are two IDE channels in total, the second of which is attached to an IOMEGA DVD/CD writer - this is the drive that contains the TI rescue CD.

    Pog.
     
  7. BillyPig

    BillyPig Registered Member

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    Ooops,

    I forgot to say that I tried the "VFAT" variation; it gave the same result.

    Pig.
     
  8. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    I know the instructions say to plug the Flashdrive in after you're booted to the TI Linux prompt, but have you tried booting with the Flashdrive plugged in? Sometimes it will be detected differently if the BIOS finds it on startup.

    You could also try booting from the Flashdrive instead of the CD and seeing if that makes a difference. One of my computers won't load TI correctly from the CD, but works fine from a Flashdrive.
     
  9. BillyPig

    BillyPig Registered Member

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    Actually, I've been doing it with the Flash drive plugged in prior to boot ! Perhaps it might be time for me to try it according to the instructions (I find that this is sometimes effective) ? I didn't think it would make any difference, but its worth a try.

    Even before I started to pursue this problem, I tried booting from the flash drive using your guide (Thanks for taking the trouble to do that, by the way, I know how time-consuming these things can be), but wasn't able to get it working. I got a “Missing Operating System message”, so I downloaded your ready-baked ATI images, but haven't taken it any further as yet.

    Thanks for the suggestions.

    Billy Pig
     
  10. mrQQ

    mrQQ Registered Member

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    What kind of problems are you having? i have same motherboard, and can't boot into rescue either! :(
     
  11. BillyPig

    BillyPig Registered Member

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    After booting into the CD (using ATI 4942), my HD is not visible from ATI and my mouse only moves vertically and very erratically. If I select the "safe" version of ATI, then the HD IS visible and I have sccessuly completed a backup (though I have not tested a restore yet).

    I'm not doing any overclocking, and I have no SATA drives, just an IDE HD and a DVD-writer.

    Pig.
     
  12. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    For the mouse problem, you could try the usbmouse=off Linux parameter (add after quiet when you press F11 at the Acronis menu).
     
  13. BillyPig

    BillyPig Registered Member

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    I tried leaving the flash drive out until after all the displays had stopped (after selecting ATI Full). After inserting the flash drive, I got these displays:

    hub.c new USB device 00:1a, assigned address 2
    usb.c USB device 2 (vend/prod 0x930 / 0x6544 is not claimed by any device driver.

    This time when I did a Proc/partitions, I just got the header back (major, minor etc), but nothing more.

    I am beginning to think that the easiest option might be to add a floppy (assuming by mb supports it) drive !

    I tried the suggested switch for the mouse, but it made no difference.

    I need to mull this over a bit. Can't really think of anything else to try at the moment.

    Pig.
     
  14. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello BillyPig,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    Could you please clarify if you tried to continue after executing the "mount -t auto /devfs/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 /mnt/tmp" command?

    Thank you.
    --
    Marat Setdikov
     
  15. BillyPig

    BillyPig Registered Member

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    Marat,

    Thanks for your reply.

    No, I didn't. I just tried digging around in the proc directory to see if I could find out what was going on. I'm not sure what you mean by "continue"; what else could I have done ?

    Regards,

    Pig.
     
  16. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    try ignoring the eror messages and see how far you can get -- sometimes you can go all the way.
     
  17. BillyPig

    BillyPig Registered Member

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    OK, wll try - Thanks.

    Pig
     
  18. BillyPig

    BillyPig Registered Member

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    Success at last !!! Thanks primarily to Shieber and the venerable mr Crab. I was just about to give up after another miserable failure when I decided to try one more combination; this is what worked for me:

    - mount the flash drive before booting.
    - ignore the error messages.
    - use a differnt flash drive.

    As an aside, I have also discovered that the procedure can upset the hardware. I have a bus-powered USB drive that normally registers as the "D" drive without problem when I plug it into my USB hub, but after a session with the ATI boot CD (trying to follow the aforementioned procedure), the drive did not appear to Windows unless it was plugged in before I booted into windows. After powering down, the drive did work as normal. Most odd. I did verify that this was the case by repeating the procedure. Once again it too a power-down to restore correct operation in Windows. The lesson is: power down (just to be safe) before you try this procedure (assuming that you were having problems).

    Gentlemen, I am heavily in your debt.

    Pig
     
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