/media/.hal-mtab and /media/.hal-mtab-lock
 

I have the following 2 files in my /media directory:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2008-01-29 21:24 .hal-mtab
---S--x--T 1 root root 0 2007-06-07 17:19 .hal-mtab-lock

What are they? Are they safe to delete?

It is normal to see these files. They are used by HAL when automounting devices under /media, so you shouldn't delete them. They would be recreated later anyway.

/media/.hal-mtab and /media/.hal-mtab-lock --Permission Denied Errors
 

Why does the .hal????? unmount and THEN STOP the new blank DVD during a backup and why is permission denied even given to "root" too? I would love to upgrade, but I want to make backup first.

Half way to three quarters of the way burned to the DVD through burning the burning a backup and then the drive is hidden and then unmounted. Attempts to fix this have met with no success. Only a maximum of 76% of the DVD is used and then the DVD or the CD drives are hidden and unmounted.

Even root is denied access and changes to fstab and mtab are automatically reverted to the original fstab and mtab files again.

WHAT IS DOING THIS and HOW DO I STOP IT?????

Thank you for any help given on this.

:confused: :confused: :confused: