Installed Lunar (Great distro, btw...really fun to mess with) and am down to a few last tweaks. One of them being my disk mounting dies during boot. I get halfway through fstab, and then it fails to finish mounting disks -- something I have never encountered before. Here is my fstab -- any ideas?
=====================================================
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
devfs /dev devfs defaults 0 0
#shm /dev/shm shm defaults 0 0
#devpts /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
tmpfs /var/lock tmpfs defaults 0 0
tmpfs /var/run tmpfs defaults 0 0


#olddir /newdir ext3 defaults,bind 0 0


#tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,size=256m,nr_inodes=64m 0 0


usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs defaults 0 0


/swapfile none swap defaults 0 0
/dev/discs/disc1/part1 /boot' ext2 defaults,noatime 0 2
/dev/discs/disc1/part2 none swap defaults 0 0
/dev/discs/disc1/part3 / ext3 defaults,noatime 0 0
/dev/discs/disc0/part1 /mnt/C ntfs ro,user,umask=0000
****DIES HERE*******
/dev/discs/disc0/part5 /mnt/D vfat rw,user,umask=0000
/dev/discs/disc2/part1 /mnt/E ntfs ro,user,umask=0000
/dev/discs/disc2/part2 /mnt/F vfat rw,user,umask=0000

==========================================================
Lunar has symlinks to /dev/hd## to /dev/discs/disc#/part#
It also likes doing interesting stuff with /devfs and /dev.
Once the machine has booted I can mount the remaining disks by simply telling 'em to mount up (or letting KDE tell 'em by just clicking on their icons). A bit stumped as to why only the first partition of HDA will mount automatically. If it died on disc2 (which is a usb drive) I'd say it had to do with modules loading late er sumthin', but it doesn't make it there...

"Died" how? With what messages?

Well, that's a good question...the disks just don't mount. There are no error messages, except a big red FAIL next to the scripted "Mounting /dev/'etc' on..." During boot. None of the standard "bad fs..to many disks mounted...bad superblock" garbage, or anything similar. Perhaps I just don't know where to look for an explanation to the fail, but the logs don't show anything I can find.

Did you write that fstab yourself or is it a lunar setup?

Why dont you try and mount it manually so it'll throw the error messages at you?

Mounting manually, as I said up there somewhere..."I can mount the remaining disks by just telling 'em to mount up..." using , say mount -t vfat /dev/discs/disc0/part5 /mnt/D --works fine, no errors. I'd think that my mounting commands in fstab might be the cause, however disk0/part1 mounts during boot using the same commands as the rest that won't mount, and I've used the same mount commands sucessfully forever and ever with other distros.

As to writing the whole fstab myself, the first "paragraph" of the file is a Lunar setup dealing with procfs, devfs, and tmpfs. Procfs doesn't mount properly yet either, but that is just a kernel thing I will take care of later involving file system support.

After using it in a 99% functional state for the last day though, if you will excuse me, I have to rave for a second on this disto... Lunar is fantastic if you are looking for a source based distro. The source finding scripts are easy to modify in case of problems, it's not buggy as hell like Sorcerer and you have all the options you need for getting everything together during the lengthly install process. It has some simple scripts for kernel compiling that makes changing or completely replacing your kernel a snap, too (and it automatically recompiles all progs that have been flagged as kernel header dependant when you do a new kernel if you want it to). I think, gasp, slackware may have found a replacement in my heart...

Try adding 'auto' to the options for the partitions that won't mount, and you might want to change umask=0000 to umask=000.

welp, gave the "auto" thing a try and changed the umask (and recompiled my kernel to fix a few minor bugs)...no luck still. I'll keep trying different things in fstab; lots of possibilities, I suppose. Any more suggestions are appriciated, and if I find a solution on my own I'll post it.

AAAAAAArgh!
You'd think after doing it so many times -- I have lost hope in myself
If you look at my frinking danged fstab above you'll see I put in umask=0000
Needs to be in format umask=0 0 0 with spaces.
Thanks for the feedback tho...

Funny.......mine is umask=000....with no spaces....but with only three zero's not four........

Aussie, I don't believe that it's the format of the ' umask= ' option that's the problem, but the fact he doesn't have the fifth and sixth fields at the end of the last four lines of his fstab file. Adding the spaces like he did solved the problem.

Bingo lc!
that's the format I have,
and that's the format that was causing the problem,
this should be the correct format.

I blame too much x-mas cheer (courtesy of Uncle Johnny Walker) for missing the obvious :-)