How to mount PPTYPE PMBR HDD to system (Pi4)

Tutorials & Guides
1

Hi everyone,

I have one Pi4 + six WD HDD (12TB/HDD). After installed CHIA GUI on Pi4, I tried to mount these HDD but it does not work.

/dev/sda    PPTYPE="PMBR"

Can you help me?

Many thanks

2

Not sure what PPTYPE is - can you share your /etc/fstab ?

And:

dmesg | grep sd

iostat (apt-get install sysstat if not installed)

and

blkid

?

1 Like
3

Please help me to check,

dmesg: https://i.imgur.com/IE79kY5.jpg
iostat + blkid: https://i.imgur.com/8Cy1Q2R.jpg

P/s do you have any full guide for setup Pi4 + Chia + connect hardware (more than five HDD with 16TB/HDD)

Many thanks

4

Ah - it’s PTTYPE not PPTYPE.

I think in this context MBR is master boot record. Not sure what PMBR is.

I think you could just do this:

mkfs.xfs -L space1 /dev/sda
mkdir /space1
mount -o noatime,nodiratime,inode64 /dev/sda /space1

Then if that works put it into /etc/fstab:

LABEL=space1 /space1 xfs noatime,nodiratime,inode64 0 0

5

The problem with SEAGATE BOX, I changed to Orico and everything is OK

If we use SEAGATE, we must format HDD and plot it again (waste money and time)

Anw, thank you so much @avifreedman

6

PMBR stands for Protective Master Boot Record. It’s an MBR type partition table that hold a GPT type partition table. It’s done that way instead of just a GPT, to protect the GPT from old tools that don’t recognize GPT and will overwrite it with an MBR.

That’s not a good idea, unless you know what you’re doing and are willing to take risks you want to partition /dev/sda first and use mkfs on the partition. It does work this way, but might give problems later on.

nodiratime is included in noatime (think of nodiratime as noatime light) and inode64 is default already.

7

Re: blowing away MBR/PMBR - I’ve been doing it with non system disks for a couple decades without issue, but good point that it may not make sense for home disks for people who aren’t comfortable with partitioning from scratch.

And similarly re: mount options - thanks, I guess it’s a bit like sync;sync;halt though halt has synced for decades. Some of my machines have been running XFS long enough that inode64 was not the default :slight_smile:

Thanks, XiMMiX