DISCUSSION: Creating shared FAT32 Partition
 

This thread is to discuss the article titled: Creating shared FAT32 Partition

It should be noted that the "umask" option in /etc/fstab deserves special mention because in Linux, permission control works differently for FAT32 and NTFS filesystems than it does for native Linux filesystems (ext2, ext3, reiser, etc.).

- The UNIX permissions of a directory onto which you mount a Windows filesystem can't be changed while the fileystem is mounted (the chang might appear to work, but it won't persist). If you need to change the UNIX permissions of the mount point, unmount the Windows filesystem before doing so.

- Windows doesn't support UNIX-style permissions, so you can only apply permissions to the entire Win filesystem, not to individual files/folders. The default permission mask applied to FAT32 volume at mount time are rwx for root, but only rx for normal users; this is modified with the "umask" option of the mount command.

- The value of the permission bits used with umask are the opposite of those used with the chmod command. For example, the following pairs are equivalent:

umask=000 and chmod 777
umask=022 and chmod 755

am facing trouble trying to instal linux
 

i wanted to instal linus in my computer but faced this problem: i coucldn't successfully create partitions. i am still not so familiar with linux. what stes should i take in linux installment?

the mkfs and mkfs.vfat commands didn't work for me ("no such file or directory," "command not found," etc.). a search showed that seems to be common with those commands. if you're having similar trouble, mkdosfs is probably what you want. i used mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/hdx and that worked fine. see man mkdosfs or mkdosfs -h for the other command line options. :cool:

sorry, nm

I ddn't want to mess with partitions and stuff, as I want to preserve my windows stuff. It's already buggy as it is :). I bought a secondary 80 GB HD and dual booted my computer. In windows disk management, I created a 20 GB FAT 32 Partition on the new drive, thinking I could use it for file sharing. Windows detects and uses the partition, but Linux doesn't :( . How can I 'mount' or whatever the drive to linux. Also, if I cant do that, How can I access a usb drive from linux? Oh, and BTW, I can delete the 20 GB partition if neccessary, but I'm not very familiar with the linux command line and most of the things I've tried with it don't work. For instance I can't get the 'tree' command to work?

How do I access my shared partition as a regular user (non-root)?

@DivisionByZero,
Remember, this post is not for asking for help, just for commenting the article at the beginning of the post.
Simply read this article, it will answer most of your questions.
If not, here is how you could make the thing work :
Just type fdisk in order to try to guess how your partitions are named from a Linux point of view.
Then add the mount points in /etc/fstab with the correct syntax.

Here is my fstab, have a look :
/dev/hda5 / ext3 defaults 1 1
none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0
/dev/hda7 /home ext3 defaults 1 2
none /mnt/cdrom supermount dev=/dev/hdc,fs=udf:iso9660,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-15 0 0
none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=ext2:vfat,--,iocharset=iso8859-15,sync,umask=0,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hda1 /mnt/win_c vfat iocharset=iso8859-15,umask=0,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hda2 /mnt/win_d vfat iocharset=iso8859-15,umask=0,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hda3 /mnt/win_e vfat iocharset=iso8859-15,umask=0,codepage=850 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda6 swap swap defaults 0 0

/mnt/win_c is my Windows C: disk
/mnt/win_d is my Windows D: disk
/mnt/win_e is my Windows 200 E: disk.

this was created automatically before the partitions existed before I install Linux, but I was also successful (on another system) adding filesystems created after Linux installation.
Homp this helps.
@Forezt, with my umask=0 parameter I use these filesystems as normal user, not as root.

Since I'm a newbie, the slightest wrong syntax for my version would be wrong. Luckily, i figured some of it out.

So here is what i did:
[root@electrolinux root]# fdisk /dev/hda

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 1216.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/hda: 10.0 GB, 10005037056 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1216 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 522 4192933+ b Win95 FAT32
/dev/hda2 523 535 104422+ 83 Linux

Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 3
First cylinder (536-1216, default 536):
Using default value 536
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (536-1216, default 1216):
Using default value 1216

Command (m for help): t
Partition number (1-4): 3
Hex code (type L to list codes): c
Changed system type of partition 3 to c (Win95 FAT32 (LBA))

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 16: Device or resource busy.
The kernel still uses the old table.
The new table will be used at the next reboot.

WARNING: If you have created or modified any DOS 6.x
partitions, please see the fdisk manual page for additional
information.
Syncing disks.
[root@electrolinux root]# mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/hda3
mkdosfs 2.8 (28 Feb 2001)
You have new mail in /var/spool/mail/root
[root@electrolinux root]#

THEN: I edited my /etc/fstab

LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot 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
/dev/hdb3 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0
/dev/hda3 /mnt/win vfat defaults,umask=000 0 0

THEN:
[root@electrolinux root]# mount /dev/hda3
mount: mount point /mnt/win does not exist

So here is my problem...it keeps saying it doesn't exist....what do I do?

TIA.

Sorry, ElectroLunux, but this seems to be quite obvious.
Simply type mkdir /mnt/win
followed by mount /dev/hda3

Are NTFS partitions still only accessable as read-only from Linux? The problem with Fat32 is there is a 32GB limit, so my 90GB data disk had to be partitioned into 3 for me to share between Windows and Linux.

Zorba4 was right. Guess I just was trying to follow directions rather than actually thinking. My win partition is a 5GB, but thanks for the info mdbarton.

@mbarton : There are other posts on the forum talking about that, saying that you should look at the followin links (I should do it soon too...)
go to the linux-ntfs page and they list a few. I've never tried them but they http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/ntfs.html#3.2 <http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/ntfs.html>
also :
( post #11 <showthread.php?postid=767182>) Explore2fs, the NT/95 explorer for Linux ex2fs partitions
and also :
<http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/>

I have my fstab setup like this
And while I can apparantly copy files to and from, every time I copy files to the partition I get: "Could not change permissions for /mnt/share/<filename>"

This is in Konqueror.

@strew : it looks like a permisison problem. Just try
chmod 777 /mnt/share