Re: [SLUG] filesystem identification

From: Eben King (eben1@tampabay.rr.com)
Date: Sat Oct 16 2004 - 14:45:37 EDT


On Sat, 16 Oct 2004, R.G. Mayhue wrote:

> On Saturday 16 October 2004 01:34 pm, Chad Perrin wrote:
> > Levi Bard wrote:
> > > On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 11:12:14 -0400 (EDT), Eben King
> > >
> > > <eben1@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> > >>OK, how does one identify the filesystem on a device? "file" says:
> > >>
> > >>[root@pc root]# file - < /dev/sda
> > >>standard input: x86 boot sector
> > >>
> > >>(/dev/sda is one of these, 0.5 GB: http://kasercorp.com/usbjumbo.cfm )
> > >>
> > >>I successfully mounted it as ext2, but just because I happened to *know*
> > >>that was what it was. In general, what should I do? How about an offset
> > >>that'll skip ahead straight to the filesystem?
> > >>
> > >> offset in 1K blocks --vvv
> > >>dd if=/dev/sda bs=1024 skip=xxx | file -
> > >
> > > I never found a good solution to this other than trial && error.
> >
> > I don't recall, but . . . is it possible to mount a drive or partition
> > without knowing the filesystem type, even if it's not in fstab? If so,
> > you should be able to mount it and use the mount command to find out.
> > I'm pretty sure I've mounted something that wasn't in fstab without
> > knowing the filesystem type, though I could be misremembering.
> >
>
> Mount will probe the superblock for the filesystem type if no -t option is
> given.

Only among those filesystems it knows about, and sometimes it guesses
wrong (umsdos vs FAT).

-- 
-eben    ebQenW1@EtaRmpTabYayU.rIr.OcoPm    home.tampabay.rr.com/hactar

Q: What kind of modem did Jimi Hendrix use? A: A purple Hayes.

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