USB removable media problem

[R Kimber]

I've been hitherto happily using an Iomega Zip USB drive mounted on
/dev/ sda4 (ext2) thus:-

/dev/sda4  /mnt/pd  ext2   defaults,noauto,users 0 0

Now, after a re-boot, when I try to access the drive I get a message
saying there is no such device as /dev/sda4

If I change fstab to
/dev/sda   /mnt/pd auto  defaults,noauto,users 0 0
it seems to mount OK but I am told: VFS: Can't find an ext2 filesystem
on dev sda

if at the promt I do
mount -t ext2 /dev/sda4 /mnt/pd
it mounts correctly, and a script that copies stuff from the HD to the
Zip works, except that when it tries to unmount the drive, it complains
- unsurprisingly - that mount disagrees with the fstab.

How do I set it up so that /dev/sda4 is created (either at boot or when
the device is accessed) but the zip drive is not automatically mounted
at boot, and my script can happily mount and unmount the drive when
needed?


I'm using 5.04 on amd64

Thanks,
- Richard
-- 
Richard Kimber
http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/