How to force umount Fat32 mount point

linuxlainen · 08-18-2008, 12:52 PM

Hi,

Somehow I have created a mount point for FAT32 space which I have no idea how to remove. This mount point was intended to be for my external HDD. But, as my external HDD turned to be none FAT32, I got the mount point without knowing on what partition it is based on.

The new mount name is "ex_hdd" and is under /media and it is taking 19GB. However, I can not find it when I run the mount command:

Quote:

/dev/sda5 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devshm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.24-19-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/sda7 on /home type ext3 (rw,relatime)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/hasan/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=hasan)
/dev/scd0 on /media/cdrom0 type iso9660 (ro,nosuid,nodev,utf8,user=hasan)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/disk type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal)

I tried the command umount but it gave me the message

Quote:

/media/ex_hdd: not mounted

Please help

Thank you

superdog · 08-18-2008, 12:58 PM

When you say it is taking up 19Gb, what do you mean? If there is nothing mounted on the mountpoint, then it's just an empty folder. What happens when you do

ls /media/ex_hdd

There will be an entry for the mountpoint in the file /etc/fstab that you should be able to simply remove, however editing this file without knowing what you are doing can be dangerous, so learn a little about it first. (or if you are using a distro with a gui then you could use that to remove the mountpoint entry)

edit: to find out which partitions are mounted use the command df -h (which actually shows diskspace free and used, but it also shows if a partition is mounted)

linuxlainen · 08-18-2008, 01:13 PM

Hi Superdog

Many thanks for your help.
The command "ls /media/ex_hdd" shows nothing as there is nothing under ex_hdd.
The 19GB figure is what I got from the properties of the mount/folder it says Free Space 19.0 GB

I ran the command df -h and it gave the following

Quote:

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda5 24G 3.0G 19G 14% /
varrun 1007M 108K 1007M 1% /var/run
varlock 1007M 0 1007M 0% /var/lock
udev 1007M 60K 1007M 1% /dev
devshm 1007M 12K 1007M 1% /dev/shm
lrm 1007M 44M 963M 5% /lib/modules/2.6.24-19-generic/volatile
/dev/sda7 167G 24G 136G 15% /home
gvfs-fuse-daemon 24G 3.0G 19G 14% /home/linuxlainen/.gvfs
/dev/scd0 651M 651M 0 100% /media/cdrom0
/dev/sdb1 147G 62G 78G 45% /media/disk

I'm wondering if my original attempt to mount the external HDD didn't work and I just created a normal folder under /media. Would it be OK, if I just delete this?

superdog · 08-18-2008, 01:27 PM

It's just an empty folder then and could safely be deleted, however depending on how your system is set up it might get recreated at next boot time. If you have a gui config app for disk's I'd use that to remove the entry for it. If not you want to remove the line from your /etc/fstab that will look a bit like this

Quote:

/dev/sda1 /media/ext_hdd fat32 defaults 0 0

Be carefull though if you do it by hand and make sure you are not removing an entry that is vital to your system booting.

Or if the entry doesn't exist, no worries and the folder can just be deleted.

edit: The 19Gb thing is because it is just a folder that is on /, so oyu have 19G free on /

Quote:

/dev/sda5 24G 3.0G 19G 14% /

amani · 08-18-2008, 01:32 PM

From what you have said...better post the contents of /etc/fstab.
External hdds get automounted in your distro?

You can delete that folder if it is not in /etc/fstab.

superdog · 08-18-2008, 01:38 PM

Yeah it's prolly a better idea to post /etc/fstab

Some distros automount, mine doesn't - I still like to do things manually.