External NTFS USB drive automount

[Pete]

On Sunday 26 August 2007 5:25:52 am Phil Pinkerton wrote:
> On 8/25/07, Stew Schneider <stew.schneider at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Kubuntu Feisty. I've got a SimpleTech 80G USB drive formatted as NTFS
> > that won't automount. I'd like some suggestions.
> >
> > I followed the directions at
> >
> > http://www.ubuntugeek.com/widows-ntfs-partitions-readwrite-support-made-e
> >asy-in-ubuntu-feisty.html and installed ntfs-config. Running it from
> > either Gnome or KDE skips the "The following new partitions were detected
> > and can be configured" dialog and goes directly to the "Enable Write
> > support" dialog. Of course, with no mountpoint specified, no mounting
> > gets done.
> >
> > If I manually alter fstab, I can mount it, but it is accessible only to
> > root, and read only. I can, however, copy the contents to my desktop as
> > root.
> >
> > Googling for an answer, I found:
> > > NTFS-config is a fat useless beast, which does a very simple thing and
> > > for that it needs to install a sheetload of gnome dependencies. Nobody
> > > needs it (not even Gnome users- only Ubuntu newbies may wrongly think
> > > they need it because it's "simple" and "idiotproof"), removable NTFS
> > > volumes can be initialized much easier:
> > > CODE
> > > sudo touch /etc/hal/fdi/policy/10-ntfs-policy.fdi
> > > sudo nano /etc/hal/fdi/policy/10-ntfs-policy.fdi
> > >
> > >
> > > Now copypaste to nano ( shift+insert) the following mumbojumbo:
> > >
> > > CODE
> > > <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> > > <deviceinfo version="0.2">
> > > <!-- mount ntfs volume with the ntfs-3g driver to enable write support
> >
> > -->
> >
> > >     <device>
> > >         <match key="volume.fstype" string="ntfs">
> > >             <match key="@block.storage_device:storage.hotpluggable"
> > > bool="true">
> > >                 <merge key="volume.fstype"
> > > type="string">ntfs-3g</merge> <merge
> > > key="volume.policy.mount_filesystem"
> > > type="string">ntfs-3g</merge>
> > >                 <append key="volume.mount.valid_options"
> > > type="strlist">locale=</append>
> > >             </match>
> > >         </match>
> > >     </device>
> > > </deviceinfo>
> >
> > I tried that, restarting hal with /etc/init.d/dbus restart, but the
> > result was the same -- the device won't automount.
> >
> > It is visible as /dev/sdb and fdisk indicates that it is HPFS/NTFS
> > formatted. A MacBook laying around here correctly mounts it as a NTFS
> > file system
> >
> > What am I missing?
> >
> > stew
>
> The ussue is not limited to NTFS..
>
> For some time now my external USB (linux-ext3) has not been auto detected
> at boot.
>
> My workaround has been to power cycle the external USB drive, then I get
> the pop-up window asking me what I want to do and I open in another window
> then just close the window.  After that doing a dh shows the disk is
> mounted as per the "fstab" layout.
>
> There was a time when it mounted at boot that is why the "fstab" is already
> configured.
>
> Phil
>
>
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>
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I had the same problem with a seagate 80g usb ext drive. finally gave up and 
formatted it as VFAT and now it works fine except that it would go to sleep 
after a few minutes and become read-only. So I made a cron job to write and 
delete a file to it every minute and that seems to keep it awake.