Hi,

I just want to know how everybody works with this problem.

Problem, which I ran into is:
when I connect more than two storage device to USB port,
the device assigned to them is a kind of random.
So, I have not figured out how /etc/fstab look like.

My memory stick seems to go either sda1 or sdb1,
My Zip drive seems to go either sda4 or sdb4.

At this moment, I have no more devices to check, but in future, the number will increase.

I appreciate any suggestion.

Thanks a lot.

kaz2100

This shouldn't really matter as the connected devices get shown on your desktop.

Thanks, but
I am using KDE and nothing pops out on desktop. ??

If you post your fstab settings (with usb stuff connected) we may be able to get a better understanding of what the problem is and supply a solution.

Oh please excuse me, I thought I posted my /etc/fstab.

The last line is problem. The actual device file name is not always /dev/sda1. Depending the order I connect, sometimes, sdb1. Zip dirve can be either sda4 or sdb4.

/dev/hde1 is a device file for PC-card memory. I never had more than two cards connected.

Following is my /etc/fstab.

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
/dev/hda5 / ext2 errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hda6 none swap sw 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/fd0 /floppy auto user,noauto 0 0
/dev/hda1 /old ext2 errors=remount-ro 0 2
#/dev/cdrom /cdrom iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/hda8 /hm ext2 errors=remount-ro 0 2
/dev/hda7 /rt ext2 errors=remount-ro 0 2
/dev/hde1 /mnt/mem vfat user,noauto 0 0
none /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs noauto 0 0
/dev/sda1 /mnt/usb vfat user,noauto 0 0

change noauto to auto in any device's line to have it automatically mount when you plug it in

I wanted to know exactly the same (but nobody answered my post ).

I've several USB devices as you, and depending on the order, they are asociated to different scsi devices. Even "worst", one of the external hard disks has more than one partitions, so I would like to mount all of them when I connect it.

I think that automount could be used for this, because is the only way I know to have a "dynamic" /etc/fstab file, but I've had no time during these days to check

It is also possible that this problem is "new" and happened only now, when USB external storage devices became more popular, so it is possible that there is no solution yet

Thanks,

I tried noauto->auto, but
I still have to explicitly specify either /dev/sda1 or /dev/sdb1 depending on the order I connect.

The option 'noauto' controls only if the drive should be mounted on bootup. The automatic mounting of a device that is plugged in should be controlled by some type of automounter and hotplug. Not sure what Debian uses...

Hotplug creates the device nodes in the order the device has been added to the system (sda,b,c,...) The number identifies the partitions on the drive. You could try to use udev-rules to assign fixed devicenodes to a particular hardware. Have a look here: http://www.reactivated.net/udevrules.php