I'm running Slackware 10.1 with the 2.6.10 kernel from the install CD. I've got an external hard drive that I frequently use and is always hooked up. Some programs use this drive, and it's an inconvenience for me to mount it just to use them. How do I get the drive to mount at boot time? If it helps, my /etc/fstab is below (/dev/uba1 is my external drive):

/dev/hdb1 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/hda4 / ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/hdb4 /hdb ext3 auto,user 1 1
/dev/uba1 /mnt/maxtor ext3 auto,user 1 1
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 auto,owner,ro,user 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0

I thought that the "auto" option was supposed to make it mount at boot, but I guess not. Strangely, though, /dev/hdb4 (an internal drive) DOES mount automatically. Hmmm . . . maybe it's just because the external drive is USB (2.0, by the way, in case it matters)? Mandrake Linux used to do this automatically with its "Mandrake Control Center" tool.

I thought USB devices in Slackware used the sda not uba (my USB zip drive does)? Do you get an error message during boot about the drive not mounting?

Yes, before I updated to 2.6.10 kernel (which is on the CD but by default, Slackware installs one of the 2.4 kernels) the drive was /dev/sda1 - but now that I have the new kernel it's /dev/uba1 for some reason.

I don't know how to check my boot messages once I'm actually logged in to make sure, but I'm pretty sure I do get an error about mounting the drive. But how come I can mount it later, then? Why won't it mount at boot time? I always thought there was an option you could use in /etc/fstab to do this, called auto or automount or autofs or something. . . I'm pretty sure it's something auto. . . As I said, though, Mandrake did it automatically before - all I did was check a box next to it - so I don't remember what it's called.

Sorry I didn't get back sooner, but my ISP had HUA.

To check boot messages, type dmesg at the command line.

I was sure the auto auto mounted the drive in /etc/fstab. If you do a mount -a at the command line, does it mount it?

If there is an error message, maybe it will say why the mount failed. In this artical, http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...icle&artid=301 , the author says he does not like to auto mount USB and Firewire drives. Because it is still a little unstable. Not sure how true this is, but it might also explain the problem.

Yes, the mount -a does mount it.

When I booted, though, I did notice that it said something about an invalid superblock or the drive not having an ext2 filesystem (which it really shouldn't since it's ext3, but I guess they're kinda the same) and to try running e2fsck. . . so I'll try that.