I am using mandriva 2006 and I wanted to have a look at my slax partition(hdb10) to see why it wont boot.

When I [mount /dev/hbd10] it says it cant because its not in fstab or mtab?

I would like to add my other partitions so I can access them also.

Is this hard to do?

Thanks

you have to be "root" in order to edit /etc/fstab


find your fstab file and post it here so we can help you edit it properly, after you do it a few times, it becomes second nature...

if a drive is not in your fstab, you need to use the notation:

# mount -t [fstype] /dev/hdb10 /[mountpoint]

where /mountpoint is an existing empty directory and fstype is the filesystem of the partition such as xfs, ext3, etc.

As far as fstab goes, it's not too terribly difficult. Basically it just tells linux what the default mount options are so that you can mount the partition using the command you used in your post. It's in the format

/dev/hdb10 /mountpoint fstype options dumpoption fsckoption

You can safely omit the last two, because they default to 0

And of course man fstab is your friend.

You can also use Moint Points->'Create resize..partitions' in the Mandrake Control Centre to mount the partition if you'd rather do it through a GUI than use fstab.

Yes I would prefer that.

I am looking at that now.I have 9 partitions on hdb and i dont think any have a mount point?

On hda I can see /mnt/windows,/,and /home.The last 2 are mandriva 2006.1.

Are these names or labels arbitrary?If I name the partitions on hdb /Slax,/Puppy,/DSL etc. will they still boot?

If so will mandriva add them automatically to fstab once they are labeled?

Thanks alot

Yeah click each partition and then click Mount Point and type in where you'd like it mounted. You can mount a partition anywhere you like as long as its a directory that's not already in use, ie. don't do something stupid like mount your hdb9 partition as /bin for example. /Slax, /Puppy etc. will all work fine.

I have mounted all of my partitions.

When I open konqueror and type /mnt in the address bar I can still only see cdrom,floppy,home,and win?
Did I forget to do something?

Below is my /etc/fstab.
Can I use an editor to re-arrange the entries so they are in order?

Thanks alot

# This file is edited by fstab-sync - see 'man fstab-sync' for details
/dev/hda6 / ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/hdb9 /dsl ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/hda8 /home ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/hda5 /kate2.2 ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/hdb8 /mandy06.1home ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/hdb6 /mandy06.1root ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom auto umask=0022,user,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,noauto,ro,exec,users 0 0
none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=ext2:vfat,--,umask=0022,iocharset=iso8859-1,sync,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hda1 /mnt/windows ntfs umask=0022,nls=iso8859-1,ro 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hdb11 /puplivecd ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/hdb5 /puppy ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/hdb10 /slax ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/hdb3 /ubuntu ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/hda7 swap swap defaults 0 0

No, looking at your fstab file there you've mounted all your partitions in the root (/) directory ,eg. /dsl. If you wanted to have them all in the /mnt directory then move them there by using the Mandriva partition program again, or editing fstab and remounting the partitions. Either way is fine.

Yes if you want, AFAIK the order in /etc/fstab doesn't matter.

By convenance distributions use /mnt or /media as a central location for removable media and other non linux associated filesystems. So cdrom, floppy and win are subdirectories under /mnt. The directories you created i.e /slax etc. are under / instead of /mnt.

Thanks for the great info.I understand fstab and the file system a lot better.

I also learned that I like Konqueror a lot more now.I can find and view any file in my box with it,as long as I know /the/pathway.Combined with the f4 key which opens a root term within the file being viewed.What a great tool. Thanks again