[SOLVED] Mounting VDI file on the N900
 

Hi Guys,

I have a VDI file which I would like to mount as a disk within maemo, however I am a total linux noob so not even sure if its possible.

I plan on giving it a try tonight when I get home from work but before I do I thought I'd run it passed some experts on here to see if its a fools-errand.

Mounting a VDI (virtualbox hdd image) file is possible in linux, as this fella managed http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtop...asc&highlight= however do all of those commands even exist within the linux kernal on the N900? Will it be able to handle ntfs etc?

I have some limited experience using the mount command so I know that one is there, as I have truecrypt installed and use the mount command to mount containers.

Any feedback or suggestions would be good before I go blindly attempting it :)

Cheers
Jamie

---------------------------
solved!

the command to mount my vdi was this

as root (and assuming that u have created a mount point in /media)

losetup -o 33280 dev/loop0 ntfs.vdi
mount -o uid=29999 /dev/loop0 /media/ntfs

to unmount:

umount /media/ntfs
losetup -d /dev/loop0


thanks to all that helped!

Re: Mounting VDI file on the N900
 

sure have mount command as it's basic linux command. the question is the thing u want to mount is fat or ntfs as not sure there are ntfs-3g driver for maemo

Re: Mounting VDI file on the N900
 

Thanks ZogG,

I have installed the trucrypt kernal settings which I think also supports samba and ntfs, but not sure, worst comes to the worst though I can always make sure the vdi file is fat32, thanks again for your feedback.

Re: Mounting VDI file on the N900
 

Ok, so got home, created a very small (25mb) fat formatted vdi file, stuck a simple file in it so I could see if I could access it once mounted.

I copied the file over to my n900 and tried the following command
but that returned...
so I tried
but this time I got
Is this because of a problem with the loop interface on the n900?

the file test.vdi exists no problem as does the mount point /media/test but I'm a little lost beyond this point so any help would be awesome, or even suggestions of alternative options in the command line.

Cheers
Jamie

EDIT ***

I have just tried successfully to mount an ISO file, so I think the loop device must be ok. I am now suspecting the offset option being the culprit. as if I try the same mount command for isos but with the "offset=0" option I get invalid argument too...

Re: Mounting VDI file on the N900
 

Check if you have loop device on your N900 (ls /dev/loop* should return some of them). If you do not have this try installing kernel-power - this one has loop support for sure (amongst other cook features).

Re: Mounting VDI file on the N900
 

thanks dwaradzyn,

I do have titans PK installed, I have just updated my last post to include some extra info, I managed to mount an ISO so the loop must be ok, but it maybe isn't fully ssupported as I think the offset command is the problem now.

Please keep those ideas a-coming :)

Re: Mounting VDI file on the N900
 

okeydokey...

quick update, found a command called losetup so did this...

losetup -o 33280 /dev/loop0 test.vdi

then

mount /dev/loop0 /media/test

and it worked!!! awesome, now need to test an ntfs file.

and also how to un-losetup

=)

Re: Mounting VDI file on the N900
 

Great to know it can be done, and thanks for following up with the solution when you found it. You make want to change your title to include the tag [Solution], so others doing a search will look here vs other threads that may not have a solution. ;)

Re: Mounting VDI file on the N900
 

Hi Woody,

I will do just as soon as I iron out a few bugs, the big one at the moment is ntfs is mounted as readonly, and the file browser doesnt show read-only files...which makes it hard to browse files.

once I have a fully working script I'll flag it as solved. =)

Re: Mounting VDI file on the N900
 

You need ntfs-3g to mount ntfs as read/write.