External USB NTFS drive

[Andrew Jarrett]

On Oct 28, 2007 10:16 PM, Steven <stevenvollom at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Andrew,
>
> I am using FireWire 400 too, but I don't currently have Windows on my
> computer.  I am a newbie.  Can you help me manually install my 1TB
> Maxtor 800 400 2usb without Window installed?  Thanks!

Sorry for the slow response, I've had a busy week.  I have looked into
this mounting problem and have seemed to come up with a decent
solution.  All it takes is some tinkering in System Settings.

1. Open "System Settings". K->System Settings
2. Go to the "Advanced" tab.
3. Click on "Disk & Filesystems".
4. Click on the "Administrator Mode" button and type in your password.
5. Locate the partition for your disk (it's the only partition under
"Disk My Book" for me).
6. Right click on that partition and choose "Modify".
7. Make sure the type is "Automatic" and specify a mount point
(optional?) for the device (I created the folder /media/My_Book for
the mount point).
8. I have mine to mount by UUID, but it really shouldn't matter what
you choose here.
9. Make sure "Enable at start up" and "Writeable" are checked (*IMPORTANT*).
10. I'm not sure if this makes a difference, but I changed mount
permission to "Device Owner may enable/disable".
11. Reboot.

There is a drawback to this, however.  I can't seem to "Safely Remove"
the drive.  It gives me this message:
------------------
Unfortunately, the device system:/media/sdb1 (/dev/sdb1) named 'My
Book' and currently mounted at /media/My_Book could not be unmounted.

Unmounting failed due to the following error:

Cannot open /media/.hal-mtab
-----------------

I have looked at what is in /media and there isn't even a file called
.hal-mtab.  There is, however, a file called .hal-mtab-lock. Any
ideas?

Anyway, this should help those of you that can't get your external
devices to mount properly (giving a permission error).  The important
steps are to enable on start up and then reboot.  The devices may not
show up on the desktop, but are available under "Storage Media".

HTH,
Andrew

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