Editing fstab - HOWTO guide?
 

I am seeking a guide to editing the fstab guide. A frequent error in my system seems to be the 'invalid block mounted device' so I want to know what to change (change 'cdrom' to 'hdb' apparently) and what the intent of the changes should be, instead of playing battleships with the program's inner workings.

Like - the cdrom is a cdrom and is not an IDE drive device. Why do I need to change it to make the OS work.

Links appreciated.

Thomas
(suse 8.0)

Found this bit in 'http://www.unixguide.net/linux/linuxshortcuts.shtml' which revealed some things.

"You know which IDE device your CDR is. Let's assume it is /dev/

I assume that which ever device is attached to the IDE cable at a particular point is described as being the owner of that point.

So ... is there a HOWTO on this bit of the linux thingamie?

i wouldn't know if there are any guides per se, as it's quite straightforward, just the general unix background that i guess you're confused about. have a look through the rute guide in my signature, it's really useful and contains a lot of information.

i presume you mean that your /dev/cdrom link doesn't actually go anywhere valid..? the 4 ide devices are

hda - primary master
hdb - primary slave
hdc - secondary master
hdd - secondary slave

a cd drive would normally be hdc, but obviosuly that depends on your system. there is normally a soft link (a *bit* like a windows shortcut, but actually completely different) from /dev/cdrom to /dev/hdc or hdb or which ever. it's only purpose is to make things look more obvious, not a critical thing at all. changing /dev/cdrom to /dev/hdb will not harm anything IF hdb is indeed the correct one.

OK ... it is several times after this time - or that time - and I have figured it out.

What I was looking for, and which I did not find, was the newbie's guide to HOWTO-FSTAB ... which said the following ...

1) the hard wired position of your hard disk & cd-rom and IDE devices matter. (In windows mostly they don't)
2) the name described to the device "/media/cdrom" is a shortcut to another name showing how to reach that item on the motherboard ... such as "hda/cdrom"
3) the place to look for in finding this shortcut for the system is in 'FSTAB' which you can find in "/dev"
4) the possible positions for the hardware item on the motheboard for standard IDE device systems are ...

hda - primary master
hdb - primary slave
hdc - secondary master
hdd - secondary slave

5) SCSI devices are not on this section (are they?) and are dealt with HOWTO-SCSI thingamie whasadooper.

It was point one that was driving me batty, now I have the soft glow of a successful-thinker-fiddler-mosquito-ridden-tech-junky-in-the-wilds-of-borneo feeling.

Cheers