Mounting external network attached storage

[Tim Penhey]

I have a maxtor NAS which internally runs samba 3.0.2, but unfortunately only 
exposes the shares through samba.

I want to mount them automatically through /etc/fstab.

I used to use smbfs however this hangs under load, and all searching on the 
internet ended up saying don't use smbfs as it is deprecated, use cifs.

However I am having problems with cifs with Dapper.

mount -t cifs //maxtor200/general /media/maxtor200/general -o  
uid=tim,gid=tim,domain=FLATCATS,rw

- fails saying it can't find //maxtor200, which is interesting as smbfs found 
it fine.

mount -t cifs //192.168.2.4/general /media/maxtor200/general -o 
uid=tim,gid=tim,domain=FLATCATS,rw

gives me the filesystem mounted but with all files owned by 35000:root

mount -t cifs //192.168.2.4/general /media/maxtor200/general -o 
uid=1000,gid=1000,domain=FLATCATS,guest,rw

- same problem with permissions

mount -t cifs //192.168.2.4/general /media/maxtor200/general -o 
file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777,domain=FLATCATS,guest,rw

- again, same problem, and it also doesn't follow the file_mode or dir_mode as 
specified in the man page.

Someone, anyone, please help.  #samba on freenode hasn't been helpful on the 
times I have tried.

Thanks
Tim