I'm running amd-64 ubuntu and am having a hard time composing the correct line in fstab. the drive in other distros works fine and is reconized as /dev/hdc1.It is an ext3 drive. TIA for any help. Maury

/dev/hdc1 /mnt/extdrive ext3 defaults,rw 0 0

Thanks for the reply. I have been trying to solve this problem for quite some time
and because of the cold weather am being left alone long enough to work it out I hope. It would be nice to get an amd-64 ver. of linux on this box. Below is a line that works with mepis and others that I have tried. I just put in a mepis live CD and could access the drive so it's ok. the below line is how it is set up in mepis fstab.
/dev/hdc1 /mnt/hdc1 auto auto,users,exec 0 0
Thanks for any help. I'm stumped. Maury

Sorry I forgot to metion this did not work
/dev/hdc1 /mnt/extdrive ext3 defaults,rw 0 0

So what are the errors when you try to mount /dev/hdc1?

When I boot up I see a failed message when loading files and also if I go into Disk Manager it reporta drive as "inaccessable".However it does see the drive? I know there is a log file somewhere if you could point me to it I'll post it.

Try to manually mount the partition i.e. (as root)
mount /mnt/extdrive

OK here is what I did.

maurice@ubuntu:~$ sudo mount /mnt/extdrive
Password:
mount: mount point /mnt/extdrive does not exist
maurice@ubuntu:~$

Another question is sudo really root? I'm not used with working with ubuntu
and don't know my way around as well. I'm used to doing the su thing and entering a root password?

Have to break for dinner... Later Thanks

You need to create the directory to use as a mount point.
mkdir /mnt/extdrive or mkdir /media/extdrive

I'm not real familar with ubuntu. Do you have a /mnt or /media directory? Be sure if it is /media to change fstab.

Thanks a lot for all the help. I'm postong the whole procedure below as it may help someone else. This worked great.

Procedure for auto mounting /dev/hdc1 in ubuntu
1-Using Terminal: sudo nautilus and put in password
2-Create a extdrive folder in the media folder
3-Create a link to the extdrive folder and leave it in the media folder
4-save and exit
5- using terminal: sudo gedit and goto etc/fstab and open it
6- add this line to fstab:
/dev/hdc1 /media/extdrive ext3 defaults,rw 0 0
Save and exit.and Reboot.
You should see a "extdrive" icon on the desktop and you should be able to access the drive.
Note! New fastab is as fillows

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda1 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hda5 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdc1 /media/extdrive ext3 defaults,rw 0 0
/dev/hdd /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/sda /media/usb0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0