As the subject says, I'm having trouble with my ntfs and fat partitions (mounted automatically on boot up) unmounting themselves after a while. (I think it happens when I open a file in my root filesystem from command line.) It's really annoying when I have been working in linux for a while and then want to grab something off of my windows partitions and can't because my drives are unmounted. I've tried remounting them when this happens, but can't do it graphically. I have to create a new mount point, mount the the partition there, and finally change access to it so that I can access it as a normal user. Then when I reboot, the drive is mounted again, but back where it was originally. I wish the darn things would just stay mounted! Has anyone else had this problem, and if so, any solutions? Thanks.

You may want to inspect your log files; especially the /var/log/samba one. See if there are any disconnections. If so then you may be able to create a function that reconnects the directory if it is disconnected or try to connect it using sshfs, which is less chatty than cifs.

I have that too when it happens I just fire up the MCC and click on mount points>Create, delete,resize harddisk partitions then click on each partition and choose mount from the options. If you catch it when it happens they will show up in the devices icon again. If it doesn't then logging out and back in will make them show again. They won't disappear/unmount until you reboot again.

I've read that it's a KDE problem>KDED Media Manager is the culprit. It's a startup service thats found in the kde control center>kde components>Service manager.
You can highlight the service and tell it to stop or uncheck the box to prevent it from loading at startup...
I haven't messed with it yet myself I just watch for them to get unmounted then re-mount them and be done with it.

Off Topic, but never a more truthful statement made ...

Indeed it is, amazingly valid in todays USA..and yet his words fall on seemingly deaf ears