Re-mounting a live OS filesystem

I'm running Debian live on a USB flash storage device and I accidentally removed the drive.

Now I keep getting input/output errors:
bash: /usr/bin/xyz: Input/output error.

The drive originally mounted as: /dev/sdb1.
But now it's auto-mounting as: /dev/sdc1.

How do I get it to mount as: /dev/sdb1 again, so I can avoid a reboot?

FYI: The device is identifiable as:
/dev/disk/by-label/Debian\x20Live.

voices

Posted 2016-09-20T10:44:49.470

Reputation: 2 053

Did you try the normal mount command? (sudo mount /dev/disk/by-label/Debian\x20Live) Alternatively, if you have not changed anything on your host and it is really just a life system, you normally can safely turn it off or use the SysRq keys.

– Simon A. Eugster – 2016-09-20T11:17:10.547

@SimonA.Eugster mount: can't find Debian\x20Live in /etc/fstab. – voices – 2016-09-20T11:28:14.433

Sorry; you also have to give the target path /dev/sdb1 (and maybe more parameters) after the mount path. – Simon A. Eugster – 2016-09-20T11:33:39.287

@SimonA.Eugster Okay, I think we're getting somewhere, but now: mount: mount point /dev/sdb1 does not exist. – voices – 2016-09-20T11:34:47.817

sudo mkdir /dev/sdb1 then because the directory is missing :) – Simon A. Eugster – 2016-09-20T11:45:00.403

@SimonA.Eugster hmm; I actually did try that. Now it's mount: special device Debian\x20Live does not exist. Also tried escaping the \x20, which returned no errors, yet fdisk -l shows no changes. – voices – 2016-09-20T12:01:20.200

Forget the crap I wrote before, my brain was on standby. /dev/sdb1 is not the mount point of the drive but the device descriptor which has to be mounted to a directory like /mnt/sdb1 or / or alike (/etc/fstab could give you some hints), whatever it was before. But probably that is not enough on a live system. – Simon A. Eugster – 2016-09-20T14:07:32.350

@SimonA.Eugster Aha. No worries mate. I thought something like that might be the case. Currently neither sdb* nor sdc* appear in /etc/fstab (in fact it's looking quite bare). Although, /dev/sdc* is reported by fdisk -l. Do you have any other suggestions? I'm reading up on all things udev and fstab but my brain is slowly turning to mush. – voices – 2016-09-20T14:30:13.040

Can you start another PC with the same live system and check how the disk is mounted there? mount should provide you with the relevant information. – Simon A. Eugster – 2016-09-21T07:11:20.253

@SimonA.Eugster Yep. Okay, I have it running on a second device. What information exactly, am i looking for? If you can give an example, I can make sure I get the relevant details. Cheers mate; much appreciated. – voices – 2016-09-21T07:51:40.480

Mainly the difference between the two machines, some mount points will be missing. It might also be a good idea to join some IRC channel like #linux on freenode and ask there for help, that would most likely be faster.

– Simon A. Eugster – 2016-09-22T10:22:32.077

Re-mounting a live OS filesystem

No answers