GNU nano 2.2.2 File: /etc/fstab

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
/dev/sda1 / ext3 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda3 during installation
UUID=e05c7519-bb29-4e72-b7b2-2bda220fe058 none swap sw $
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0

Where is my sda2 and sda4?

Hello Neal,

Long time no seen buddy! Let's see if I can help you out. Can you run in a terminal the following and post the output here?
That will list all your partitions on all your drives.

Kind regards,

Eric

PS: by the way, your other profile was Lorax (the tree hugger). Found it in my friend list.

1 members found this post helpful.

OMG!
I miss you Eric! My knight in shining armor! Ha ha!

Hi,

I've always been around my friend. You seemed to have lost the way to LinuxQuestions

Ok, here goes. Your /dev/sda2 is of the type extended meaning it holds another partition. You can only have four primary partitions on a disk and most likely you've created the extended type to overcome that limit since it allows you to create partitions inside the Extended type. The filesystem within the /dev/sda2 is /dev/sda5. Look at the start and end sectors for both partitions, they are identical.

Your /dev/sda4 partition is still there so you can go ahead and mount that. Test it by mounting it. Check for example if you have anything in /mnt with:
If it comes up empty then run:
and run
again.

Let me know if that works without errors.

Kind regards,

Eric

1 members found this post helpful.

Sent you a pm on lq.

Hi,

Read and answered!

That output doesn't look good, at least that is if you had any data on that partition. Did you happen to format it, wipe it, repartition or anything like that? If you did then I hope you have a backup.

Kind regards,

Eric

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you for explaining the extended partition business. I knew what that meant, but I had no idea that I set it up that way. Now I can recognize it in the fdisk readout. You know, back when I was playing around with 11-boot, I was easily able to access files on any/every partition from all kinds of distros. Not sure why I understood, or did things correctly, back then...

Yea, dont worry about any data there. There never was any. New HDD, clean format, install.

Hi,

OK, then there's no problem at all in using it. I guess you have a directory created where you want to mount that partition? If so then follow what's pointed out in post #14 to add a line to your /etc/fstab to mount the partition correctly at boot. After you added it run:
and you should have access. Don't forget the 'user' parameter in the fstab line and also make sure you (as user) are owner of the directory you're mounting the partition to.

Kind regards,

Eric

1 members found this post helpful.

I admit, I am lost in #14, and the wiki. I get lost in other forums and tutorials also. Maybe Im just scared of manipulating the core neural workings of my system without step-by-step instructions. Remember how needy I was when I started Linux?! I still feel the same.

So, back to the thread, I am not sure how to add to fstab. I only know how to copy/paste!

will i type ?

---------- Post added 05-20-11 at 12:10 PM ----------

Ok, I did so anyway!

will i add:

/dev/sda4 /mnt auto user (not sure about the dump n pass)


Does "user" need to be my actual user name, "neally"?


?????????????????????????????

There needs to be a "go to post #____" field on LQ.

Hi,

No worries, step by step it is. You do know how to open a terminal, that you have demonstrated already. So in a terminal type the following:
That will open the Nano editor with the /etc/fstab file. Nano is a very easy editor so you should be able to perform the next steps.
Go down to the last line (add a blank line if needed by going to the end of the last line and press enter).
Now type (or copy paste the following on that line):
where /dev/sda is your partition you want to mount, /mnt/data is where you want to mount that partition (if you have another location where you want to mount the partition, then change /mnt/data to that and make sure you have the permissions correct (ls -l to show them, post if you doubt), ext3 is the filesystem you formatted the partition with (if its another one then change it to the correct one), auto means the system will mount the partition automagically at boot, user indicates that users can mount it, rw means the partition will be mounted read-write, the 1 is used to indicate the filesystem needs to be dumped at shutdown and the 2 indicates the order in which the filesystem will be checked at reboot.

After you typed in that line, type CTRL O (Control Oh) to output the document (save it) and enter yes to save it to the same name. Then type CTRL X (Control X) to close Nano.

Now run :
and your partition should be accessible to you for read and write operations both at console and in Dolphin. Any doubts, don't hesitate to post.

Kind regards,

Eric

1 members found this post helpful.