External Harddive changes mount point

Rockgod1969 · 04-25-2009, 02:37 PM

Hi I have an HP DV9000 running the latest version of ubuntu, and I have a large western digital external harddrive. I Am able to access it, and it works, but everytime I boot up, it switches between mounting at sdc1 and sdd1. This makes it difficult for programs I use like amarok and f-spot to locate the files in their collections. Is there a way to set it so the harddrive will mount in the same place every time?

hurry_hui · 04-25-2009, 02:44 PM

Quote:

but everytime I boot up, it switches between mounting at sdc1 and sdd1.

IMO, it has something to do with your BIOS boot sequence, grub and/or udev (i.e., which drive is detected first). You need to use label or UUID to address drive you'll mount.

jschiwal · 04-25-2009, 02:54 PM

Yes. If you use an fstab entry for it, but use the UUID number or the LABEL in place of the device.

You can determine the UUID by using the `udevinfo' program or by following the /dev/disk/by-id/<device-name> to the physical device.

Code:

D_VENDOR=ATA
ID_MODEL=ST31000333AS
ID_REVISION=SD15
ID_SERIAL=SATA_ST31000333AS_9TE05DW6
ID_SERIAL_SHORT=9TE05DW6
ID_TYPE=disk
ID_BUS=scsi
ID_ATA_COMPAT=ST31000333AS_9TE05DW6
ID_PATH=pci-0000:00:1f.2-scsi-5:0:0:0
ID_FS_USAGE=filesystem
ID_FS_TYPE=ext3
ID_FS_VERSION=1.0
ID_FS_UUID=61b27e9c-572d-4706-9d03-1fb49fefd53b
ID_FS_UUID_ENC=61b27e9c-572d-4706-9d03-1fb49fefd53b
ID_FS_LABEL=
ID_FS_LABEL_ENC=
ID_FS_LABEL_SAFE=
FSTAB_NAME=/dev/sdb1
FSTAB_DIR=/mnt/tera
FSTAB_TYPE=ext3
FSTAB_OPTS=user,noauto,acl,user_xattr,usrjquota=aquota.user,grpjquota=aquota.group,jqfmt=vfsv0
FSTAB_FREQ=0
FSTAB_PASSNO=0

The highlighted part is what you would put in the first column of the fstab entry.

What kind of filesystem does the drive use? You might want to either use your GUI partioning program or let it auto mount once and then use the same options. I doubt I would have come up with the options like user_xattr, and the others in the example above if I had written an fstab entry from scratch.

For an external drive, I would recommend the user and the noauto options. The user or users option allows a regular user to mount the drive without needing to use sudo. You could even put it in your ~/.profile login script. The `noauto' option will prevent a booting failure if the disk isn't plugged in then you boot up.

If it uses VFAT or NTFS, then use the "uid=<yourusername>" and "gid=<yourprimarygroup>" options, as well as the "fmask" and "dmask" options to determine the permissions of files and directories respectively.

Here is an example of an fstab entry for an external drive & an internal ntfs partition.

Code:

UUID=5783d30e-8dc4-447a-80f4-8952129e9d9e       /mnt/mybook     ext3    user,defaults,noauto 0 0

/dev/sda2       /mnt/vista      ntfs    rw,user,fmask=117,dmask=007,uid=jschiwal,gid=jschiwal 0 0