mjhjmtu

My laptop for some reason will not power an external 2.5" HDD, so I am using a Raspberry PI to connect to the drive.

The problem is, I am struggling to perform tasks such as formatting disks and backing-up/restoring partitions. For example:

$ sshfs zaz@192.168.1.93:/dev/ /media/pi-dev
# ntfsclone -r -O /media/pi-dev/sda1 backup.iso
[sudo] password for zaz: 
ntfsclone v2016.2.22AR.2 (libntfs-3g)
ERROR(13): Couldn't access 'dev/sda1': Permission denied

How can I use sshfs to mount device files so that I can work with partitions?

SSHFS cannot do this. It cannot access block devices. (Source.)

You have four options:

• 
  

  SSH into the Pi, and mount the drive. Eg:

  
  
  

  root@pi# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/disk
  

  
  
  

  Then use SSHFS to mount it on your laptop. Eg:

  
  
  

  user@laptop$ sshfs zaz@192.168.1.93:/mnt/disk/ /media/pi-disk
  

  
  
  

  Now you can modify files on the hard drive. However, I think this doesn't solve your problem - it sounds like you're trying to reformat or recover a failing disk.

  
  


• 
  

  SSH into the Pi, and run your disk recovery commands there. If you don't have enough space on the Pi to do a disk clone, consider trying something like:

  
  
  

  ntfsclone --save-image --output - /dev/hda1 | 
   gzip -c | ssh host 'cat > backup.img.gz'
  

  
  
  

  (Source: ntfsclone(8) manual.)

  
  
  

  This command clones a local partition, and saves it to a remote system.

  
  



• Buy a powered USB hub. (The kind with a wall-wart.) They're pretty cheap, and you could connect your hard drive to your laptop without any power issues.




• Use Network Block Device (NBD) to share the block device over the network. Example. I have never tried this, so you're on your own. ;)