Mounting issue

ELECTRONICSFREAK · 10-10-2008, 10:42 PM

Ok, I read tutorials and managed to get networking setup between my windows machine and the linux server. However, everytime I restart the computer, it appears the 2 hard drives become unmounted. I am running 3 hard drives, a 40GB that has the os on it, and 2 500GB drives for storage. Both seem to be unmounted everytime I restart. Therefore I have to mount them before I can access them again through network. How do I permately mount them?

onebuck · 10-10-2008, 10:55 PM

Hi,

What distribution?

ELECTRONICSFREAK · 10-10-2008, 11:00 PM

Woops, sorry about that. I am running Ubuntu server edition.

cyprinidae · 10-11-2008, 05:09 AM

Have you added these drives when the system was already installed? How do the entries for each one of them look like in your /etc/fstab?

AuroraCA · 10-11-2008, 07:44 AM

Linux looks in a file called /etc/fstab to determine what drives should be mounted at startup and how they should be mounted.

One of the very best tutorials and explanations of the operation and setup of /etc/fstab was written in the Ubuntu Forums at:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=283131

also see:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Fstab

Have a look at it and get back to us if you still have questions.

Generally, you will want to add a couple of lines to your /etc/fstab such as:

Code:

/dev/sdb1       /mnt/disk1name     ext3    defaults        0       0
/dev/sdc1       /mnt/disk2name     auto    defaults        0       0

Have a look at the forum post tutorial for an explanation of these lines since they explain it better than I probably can here.

After adding the lines you need to execute a mount -a command or reboot.

ELECTRONICSFREAK · 10-12-2008, 10:55 PM

I have been reading those sites and I guess im just too new to linux right now. I am very confused lol. Have been trying to figure this stuff out but it is not making much sense. I did find another site that seems to be making some sense, however, it is not completely working.

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/mountlinux

I have got everything to work till the part of sudo mount -a. That is where the problem arrises. I did change one part, my drive location is /dev/sdb1, so I put that on the fstab file instead of the /dev/hda5.

I have a photo attached showing the problem. This is probably something simple, but right now to me , this is complicated lol.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...untproblem.jpg

speck · 10-12-2008, 11:46 PM

Type the following commands and then post the output. This should help with debugging your issue.

Code:

sudo fdisk -l

Code:

cat /etc/fstab

Code:

ls -ld /storage

ELECTRONICSFREAK · 10-13-2008, 12:05 AM

Sorry for having to do this the picture way, but something messed up on the network and I think its my cable. Have not made another one yet, so for now , I am taking pictures. Here they are on what you requested me to do.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...K/problem2.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...K/problem1.jpg

speck · 10-13-2008, 12:46 AM

Thanks. Actually the fdisk command should be the letter 'l' (ell), not the number '1' (one).

ELECTRONICSFREAK · 10-13-2008, 12:56 AM

ah ok, here you go

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...K/problem3.jpg

AuroraCA · 10-13-2008, 08:01 AM

OK.

Your two 500 gig hard drives are recognized by the system as

Code:

/dev/sdb1 ext3 Type 83 (Linux)
/dev/sdc1 ext3 Type 83 (Linux)

You need to add a mount point for each disk. You have already established a mount directory of /storage but you will need a mount point for each disk. For example /storage/disk1 or /storage/disk2, /storage/d1 or /storage/d2 or /storage/mirror or /storage/backup. It is up to you to choose a name you wish to use which is easy to remember and/or type.

Make the mount points as follows:

Code:

mkdir /storage/disk1 (or whatever name you choose for disk 1)
mkdir /storage/disk2 (or whatever name you choose for disk 2

Then add the following lines to you /etc/fstab with an editor such as nano, vi, etc. Caution: Make a copy of your original /etc/fstab file first! (cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.orig)

Add these lines to /etc/fstab:

Code:

# mount /dev/sdb1 as /storage/disk1
/dev/sdb1 /storage/disk1 ext3 defaults 0 0

# mount /dev/sdc1 as /storage/disk2
/dev/sdc1 /storage/disk2 ext3 default 0 0

NOTE: If you are not certain as to the type of disk format you can use the work "auto" instead of "ext3" in the above lines.

Save the file and run to mount your new disks without rebooting your computer (hereafter your computer will automatically recognize these disks upon startup)

Code:

mount -a

Then type the following to see your mounted devices and locations:

Code:

mount

and you should see your mounted devices and their system names and information.

HINT: You can see what space is being used on each disk with the following command:

Code:

df -h

ELECTRONICSFREAK · 10-13-2008, 01:46 PM

Ok , I followed what you said and they appear to be mounted now. However when I type mount, I see an error on one of the lines. I took a photo. Not sure if it means anything or not. Here is the photo

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m.../donemaybe.jpg

speck · 10-13-2008, 07:45 PM

You have one of your 500GB drives mounted (/dev/sdb1) on /storage/disk1. You can do the same thing for the second 500GB drive (/dev/sdc1).

I don't see an error in the output of your "mount" command.

AuroraCA · 10-13-2008, 08:24 PM

I don't see any errors either.

If you are referring to the line:

Code:

/dev/sda1 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=remount -ro)

This means that if the device is found to have errors mount it as read only. This will prevent data loss.

You are up and running but your /dev/sdc1 is still not mounted.

ELECTRONICSFREAK · 10-14-2008, 01:35 AM

I saw I forgot to add something to the line so they should both be mounted now. I just checked and if I am reading right they are.

Thanks for all the help!!! I really appreciate it. Definitely thanks for being patient lol.