Hi Guys,

Linux n00b here, I am having problems mounting partitions at boot time. My fstab entries for the partitions look like this

/dev/hda5 /mnt/Storage auto vfat user,rw 0 0
/dev/hda6 /mnt/Backup auto vfat user,rw 0 0

I gives an error of not mounting properly during boot up but they mount except they are read only despite the fact that the rw option is set. They are fat32 partitions Im running Red Hat 9 (2.4.8) I know old but I will be moving to Debian soon or Gentoo. Havent decided yet.

Dave

What are the messages specifically? write them down and write them here.

Can you mount them on the command line? e.g.
mount /dev/hda5 /mnt/Storage -tvfat

I'm pretty sure your syntax is off. Give this one a shot:

that would be it.

Hi Guys,

Cheers for the suggestions but they didnt work. When I try to copy something it says access denied cound not write to /dev/hda5/. Im baffled as to why this wont work, Ive looked at loads of sites for this and they all say the same. Any ideas?

I am getting a boot up error for my CD-ROM drive

[mntent]: Line 5 in /etc/ fstab is bad

/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom udf iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0

Now this is before the two lines for the mounted partitions, would this make adifference? The floppy drive follows the CD-ROM line and it has no problems.

Daved



Dave

well what have you tryed? have you even tryed to check the status of the disk? Can it be written to? wht happens when you tryed my mounting suggestion? what are the error messages?

When you want help write EVERYTHING. Be verbose, the more information you provide the easier it is for people like me to decipher your problem. just saying it doesnt work is NOT going to get you an answer, in fact it makes me annoyed because i've gone out of my way to try and help and you arent even trying to help yourself.

So, i ask again; what have you tryed?

For /dev/hda5 add umask=0000 to the options

Try this for the cdrom
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,user,kudzu,ro 0 0

Hey,

Frustin my applogoies I will try and give you as much information as possible.

1) IThe drives mount automatically from startup, if I unmount them and remount them as root they are still ro.

2) When mounted automatically I can read from them but not write tot hem

3) There are no error messages in boot time and there is only an alert / erro when I try to write to the disk which simpy says access denied, even when in root.

4) How do I check the "status" of the disk - is this like doing a scandisk for linux?

I dont know what other information you are looking for.

PDD, did you read my post?

I'm having a bad day. appologies.

If you say they are mounted (even if they are ro); is that an assumption? how do you know that? simply type `mount' and paste the output here.

If those disks are not in that information your are just about to provide, what actually happens when you run the mount command that i provided a day or so ago? does it give an error? if there is no error, again paste what the result of mount gives you here.

Hey Guys,

Dont worry about it Frustin we all have those and besides you were right in the famous words:
"Help me....... Help you!" :-)

Ok heres what my fstab looks like now:

LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0

/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,user,kudzu,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0

/dev/hda5 /mnt/Storage vfat auto,users,rw 0 0
/dev/hda6 /mnt/Backup vfat auto,users,rw 0 0

The output from a mount after a fresh reboot ios as follows:

/dev/hda3 on / type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
usbdevfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbdevfs (rw)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/hda5 on /mnt/Storage type vfat (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/dev/hda6 on /mnt/Backup type vfat (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)

Am I right in saying that asthey are listed there then the drives are mounted? I can navigate to them using Konqurer (in root) however still read only (access denied for writing). Also when I use a shell (as root) to copy files I get the the following error: "cp: cannot create regular file `/mnt/Storage/output.txt': Permission denied"

Now at this point I use the following commands in a shell (again in root)

umount /mnt/Storage
umount /mnt/Backup

The output from mount is as follows:

/dev/hda3 on / type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
usbdevfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbdevfs (rw)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/cdrom on /mnt/cdrom type iso9660 (ro,noexec,nosuid,nodev,user=dcullen)

Now I will manually remount the drives using the following commands:

su (to make sure Im in root)
mount -t vfat /dev/hda5 /mnt/Storage
mount -t vfat /dev/hda6 /mnt/Backup

The mount output after this is:

/dev/hda3 on / type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
usbdevfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbdevfs (rw)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/cdrom on /mnt/cdrom type iso9660 (ro,noexec,nosuid,nodev,user=dcullen)
/dev/hda5 on /mnt/Storage type vfat (rw)
/dev/hda6 on /mnt/Backup type vfat (rw)

After which the drives are now mounted and are re-writable. Im guessing its something in the fstab options but as I said they seem to be consistant with what Ive seen everywhere. At this point guys I have to hold my hands up and say I am baffled!

Oh and DarthTux the CD-ROM drive is workign fine now, thanks a million!

Glad your cdrom is working but I already gave you the solution to your other drives

/dev/hda5 /mnt/Storage vfat auto,user,rw,umask=0000 0 0

based on what you have there, it _is_ something in your fstab but as i dont have a linux box in front of me and i cant be bothered to find out what the correct options are, finding out is up to you.

i can tell you that the man page for fstab will tell you about those options that you have chosen for your two fstab lines. Go and find out what they mean and why you are using them in this instance. Explain them here, if you are still confused, i'll help you find out what you should be using.

Hey Frustin,

I have trawled through the man pages and all the options seem to be ok. Thats why I posted on here because I had trawled throught them and lots of sites but not elightenment.

DarthTux,

I have read the man pages on moun, fstab, nfs and there is only a brief mention of the option umask. I have done some more googling for fstab and umask and now I know its all about permissions. Cheers for that, I dont know why it isnt illustrated more clearly in the man pages. Thats one of the things that annoys me about Linux the man pages seem to somewhat very old and there doesnt seem to be revisions on them to try and make them clearer. Very confusing for a n00b.

Dave