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I have a Windows XP HDD that no longer wants to mount. Long story short, I tried to acces my data through a Ubuntu Live USB. The hard drive wouldn't auto mount, thus I created a mount point using:

sudo mkdir /media/external

When I try to mount the HDD using

sudo mont /dev/sda2 /media/external -o forcer

I get this error message:

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda2, missing codepage or helper program, or other error In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so

How can I force mount my fat16 partition so that I can save my files?

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What makes you think it's FAT16, btw? FAT32 was introduced in Windows 95, 6 years before WinXP. – Sergey Nov 9 '12 at 3:22
Gparted says it is Fat16... It's my fathers HDD, I have no idea why he chose fat16. – Dominic Jordan Hasford Nov 9 '12 at 3:27

1 Answer

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You need to specify filesystem type explicitly:

sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sda2 /media/external

(you can also try fat, msdos and umsdos). The particular format (FAT32, FAT16 or FAT12) should be detected by the driver automatically, however, you can override it with fat={12|16|32} option.

See man mount for more details on FAT-specific mount options.

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I would replace "-t vfat" by fat, or msdos, or umsdos? – Dominic Jordan Hasford Nov 9 '12 at 3:32
Yes, they're different drivers which share a common core/options: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAT_filesystem_and_Linux – Sergey Nov 9 '12 at 3:55

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