[ltp] Adding USB hard drive storage

[Mendel Cooper]

All right, so the following doesn't apply _specifically_ to Thinkpads ...


You can pick up a used 20 - 100 GB 3.5" hard drive for a few bucks at
yard sales, on the Bay, or elsewhere. Together with a USB enclosure or
just a USB/cable/converter ($10 or so), you can cobble together cheap
massive storage and backup. Here's how.

Attach drive with cable or enclosure to USB port on your Thinkpad. It should
be a USB 2 port unless you have infinite patience (USB 1.1 is unbelievably
slow for large data transfer). If necessary buay a USB 2 port converter that
plugs into a PCMCIA slot (about $10).

Now ...

As root:
1) fdisk /dev/sda
Notes:
  * Not /dev/sda1. You want to partition the disk device, not a partition.
  * I create a single huge partition. No compelling reason for separate
    partitions, but hey, different strokes ...

2) e2fsck -v /dev/sda1
Notes:
  * Repeat for each partition, /dev/sda2, /dev/sda3, etc., as necessary.
  * You may use the -c option to check for bad blocks, this this is _slow_.
  * No need for ext3 partitions, I don't think.

3) To mount the formatted drive, plug it into the USB slot with enclosure
   or cable, then
   gnome-mount -d /dev/sda1
   gnome-mount -d /dev/sda2, etc.

   Or, just let KDE or Gnome automount it for you.


Hey, that's all.

Comments?


---Mendel