Hello

I recently installed Mandrake Linux v9.1 but before I did this, I made sure everything was connected (including my IOmega 100MB USB zip drive). I've never had any problem with the drive or Mandrake Linux but for some reason this time, an icon for it was not created on my desktop and I need to access it so I can install my other software from the zip disks.

My question is, is there a simple newbie-ish way to mount this zip drive so I can use it?. I'm not all that good with complex terminal commands so please be "gentle" on me. Thank's again for any help on this!

- TippyToes

the first thing to do is see if you can mount it from the command line. You have to create a mount point first. Run this in a terminal:

$ su
<enter root password>
# mkdir /mnt/zip

This creates your mount point for the zip drive, /mnt/zip. Next, insert a zip disk in the drive and run:

# mount -t vfat /dev/sda4 /mnt/zip

USB zip drives are designated /de/sda4 in linux. The above command should mount the drive. To check run:

# ls /mnt/zip

That should list the contents of the zip disk. If it does then you can set up an entry in /etc/fstab for the drive. First unmount the zip drive with:

# umount /dev/sda4

That's not a typo; the correct command is "umount" not "unmount" .

Now to edit /etc/fstab. As root run:

# kedit /etc/fstab

That will bring up fstab in kedit, a simple text editor. Add this line to fstab:

/dev/sda4 /mnt/zip vfat user,exec,noauto,defaults,umask=0,rw 0 0

Save the changes and exit kedit. That should allow ordinary users to mount the zip drive with read/write permissions. To test if it's working run this as an ordinary user:

$ mount /mnt/zip

Then open konqueror and navigate to /mnt/zip and see if you can see the contents of the zip disk there. You should be able to. Close konqueror and unmount the drive with:

$ umount /mnt/zip

if you get this far, post back and I'll show you how to make a mounting icon on your destop for the zip drive.

Will this work with any zip drive? Also I might have to use knoppix therefore I can't make new directories.

Thanks.

bolinux, yes, this should work with any linux using a usb zip drive unless the distro has some automounting/detection for usb mass storage devices. In that case, it should automatically set up the fstab entry and mount point for you along with a desktop icon for accessing the drive. Of course, if that works, you don't need to do it by hand.

For knoppix you can create a mount point directory but it's not written to your hard drive. It exists in a ramdisk created by the bootable knopix cd along with all the other knoppix files and directories. Since it exists only in ram it disappears as soon as you reboot. That being the case, there's no point editing fstab in knoppix because it will disappear as soon as you reboot unless you want to do so for easier access during the session.