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Old 12-11-2002, 11:15 AM   #1
derek.eder
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Cannot mount Windows FAT32 partition


My apologies for the most classic of classic newbie problems, but I really am clueless.

I want to mount a FAT32 partition (created under Win XP) into Linux (RH 8). Bill Gates got one IDE hard drive (hda) with 2 NTFS and 1 FAT 32 partition. Linus has the other hardrive all to himself:

[derek@localhost etc]$ cat fstab
LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
LABEL=/data /data ext3 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
LABEL=/tmp /tmp ext3 defaults 1 2
LABEL=/usr /usr ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/hdb7 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0
/dev/cdrom1 /mnt/cdrom1 iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0
/dev/hda3 /mnt/hda3 vfat sw 0 0

As you can see, I added an entry to /etc/fstab and also created a local mount directory. But ....

[root@localhost etc]# mount /dev/hda3
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda3,
or too many mounted file systems
(could this be the IDE device where you in fact use
ide-scsi so that sr0 or sda or so is needed?)

What could be the problem?
- The fs is correct ?
- The options are good ?
- I don't know what a superblock is - but the drive works under XP
- Too many mounted file systems? How many is too many?

Thank you,

Derek
 
Old 12-11-2002, 11:25 AM   #2
Thymox
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Could you enlighten me what the sw stand for? I couldn't find reference to it. My fstab entry looks like this:
Code:
/dev/hda1 /mnt/win_c vfat users 0 0
and it works fine. The 'users' option allows any user to mount or umount it, regardless of which user mounted it in the first place.

HTH
 
Old 12-11-2002, 01:36 PM   #3
whansard
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i read through that whole thing till i got to the sw
at the bottom. i wish i had checked the answer first.
the sw means for mount to try to mount the drive,
but tell you you can't because of a bad option, or
in other words, its not an option. you meant rw.
 
Old 12-12-2002, 06:48 AM   #4
derek.eder
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Regardless of the fstab entries or switches, the mount command should still mount the filesystem.

On boot, I see an error emanating from the processing of fstab. In addition to the non-specific mount error (e.g., "mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda3, or too many mounted file systems ..."), it says: "cannot read boot partition" (if memory serves me correctly).

I attempted to mount the other (NTFS) partitions on the Bill Gates hard disk (created under Windows XP), but Linux reports that the kernel is not compiled with NTFS support.

So, I am back to square one - why in the world can't my RH 8 Linux see a FAT32 partition on another hard disk?

Thanks,

Derek
 
Old 12-12-2002, 09:23 AM   #5
Thymox
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Try using Linux's fdisk to see if it can even see it...
fdisk -l /dev/hda
Post the output?
 
Old 12-12-2002, 09:42 AM   #6
whansard
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to be sure, you're saying this doesn't work

mkdir /poop
mount -t vfat /dev/hda3 /poop
mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /poop
mount -t vfat /dev/hda2 /poop

if you do have 2 ntfs partitions and 1 fat32,
on the primary master, this will not be able
to mount the ntfs drives and only the fat32
will end up mounted.
 
Old 12-12-2002, 09:46 AM   #7
Thymox
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Eh?

If you have an ntfs partition, you can't mount it with -t vfat anyway! And you certainly shouldn't be mounting filesystems over eachother - that's just plain daft.
 
Old 12-12-2002, 10:06 AM   #8
whansard
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i just did that incase his fat32 partition wasn't the one
he thought. I don't want it to mount unless its his fat32.
if he gets an error message for all 3, then we'd see.
i expected at most only one of those commands to work.
this is for testing, not for use.
i often accidently mount a partition on top of another one.
sometimes i accidenlty type mount dev/hda8 / mnt/hda8.
i just have to umount /dev/hda8 and do it over.
 
Old 12-12-2002, 11:37 AM   #9
derek.eder
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Aha! I expected that the 3 windows partitions I created would have been called hda1, hda2, and hda3 .... but noooooo!


Thank you all! fdisk reveals the state of the drive and hda6 mounts just fine.


# fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 2550 20482843+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 2551 9728 57657285 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 2551 5100 20482843+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda6 5101 7650 20482843+ b Win95 FAT32
 
Old 12-12-2002, 01:46 PM   #10
whansard
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logical drives in an extended partition start at 5 and go up.
 
  


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