hey guys,
i'm trying to mount a filesystem when the system boots, so i won't need to mount it everytime..

so what I did was copying the line of the filesystem I wanted to mount on startup from /etc/mtab:

and pasted it as it is, in the /etc/fstab file.
when the system booted, it didn't work. not only that, I wasn't able to mount the filesystem at all, (it gave me some kind of an error) so I removed the line from fstab file and it all back to normal.

how can I mount this filesystem on boot?
(i'm using Fedora 12 btw)

Is the /media mount point always the same from one mount the the next? If the mount changes from one mount to another, you should investigate writing a udev rule to create a persistent mount point. Then add the line to your fstab.

Yea it's always the same.

Please post the text of "some kind of an error". When you write "I wasn't able to mount the filesystem at all" did you try mounting /dev/sda1 somewhere other than /media/209CDAF39CDAC308? When you are able to mount the file system what does df -T show for it? Have you looked in the /var/log/* files for errors?

Does "/media/209CDAF39CDAC308" exist? You should probably make a permanent mount point (e.g. /mnt/whatever) and use that instead.

When I tried to mount the filesystem after the system booted, part of the error was
"/media/209CDAF39CDAC308" doesn't exist..

but everytime I mount this device, it's mounted to this mount point. can I make this mount permnant? to this mount point?

It must be automatically created by some daemon that scans for new devices.

You shouldn't use "/media/anything" if you want it permanent. The "/media" tree seems to be used by auto-mounting daemons. Google "linux automount" and "autofs" if you want to know more.

Instead, create "/mnt/your-creative-name-here" where you replace "your-creative-name-here" with something descriptive (or not). For example, if it is a thumb drive, you can use "/mnt/thumb". Then you can create an fstab entry that uses that mount pount.

Then all you have to do to mount the device is use "mount /mnt/thumb" (or "sudo mount /mnt/thumb").

don't forget to mkdir /the/mount/point before you try toboot with the edited fstab. In the example above to try out your edit without rebooting use which will read fstab and mount those entries.

I thought
implied the use of "mkdir". But thanks for making it clear.

It probably did, but I always need things spelled out for me, so it's habit to do the same.

Okay I tried what you guys said, mounting it to /mnt/directory-i-created and it works.

here is how I got into this problem at first place,
the device is actually my windows-xp partition, so when I opened the Computer window, it showed me all the different partition i've on my HD plus the linux filesystem. each one as a diff HD icon.
so I tapped on the xp partition (which is the largest so most of my files are over there) and it asked me for my root pass. as I entered it, it mounted it to /media tree. then I linked few directories to my desktop, and after reboot that prob came up. I solved it by what you guys just said.

I got a brief overview of what autofs is right now.. guess i'll learn more on it later when I get to that in my study books.
thanks for the help fellas! much appericiated