Access to Linux (ext3) & Windows (FAT32) partitions (from Ubuntu 9.04)

[Tim Frost]

Jay,

On Mon, 2009-08-10 at 12:33 +0530, Jay Mistry wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 11:18 AM, Fred Roller<froller at tnclimited.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, 2009-08-10 at 09:54 +0530, Jay Mistry wrote:
> >> On a new install of Ubuntu 9.04 on a home desktop PC, how can one
> >> enable access to Windows XP (FAT32) and Fedora 10 (ext3) partitions
> >> from within Ubuntu (using GNOME 2.26 desktop) ?
> >
> > for FAT32
> > sudo mount -t cifs /dev/[fat32 partition] /mnt/[some dir]
> >
> > for ext3
> > sudo mount -t ext3 /dev/[ext3 partition] /mnt/[some dir]
> 
> Will these cmds mount the file systems permanently (i.e. every time I
> boot into Ubuntu) ?

No, Fred's instructions are for "now", and won't survive over a reboot.

> Or should the /etc/fstab file be changed to reflect the added
> partitions? If yes (for /etc/fstab), what needs to be added/modified
> to /etc/fstab ?

You need a line for each partition, with the same information as is used
to build the mount command:

/dev/[fat32 partition] /mnt/[some dir] cifs defaults     0   0
/dev/[ext3 partition] /mnt/[some dir] ext3 defaults  0   2

You need the mount points ("/mnt/[some dir]" in the above examples) to
exist, be unique(!), and to have sane permissions.  If the mount point
doesn't exist, the mount operation will fail.  If the permissions are
too restrictive, you will have problems accessing or updating files.

The "0 0" and "0 2" influence whether (and the order of) file systems
checks are done.  You probably don't want a check done of the vfat
filesystem.

If those file systems existed when you installed ubuntu, they may have
been detected by the installer, in which case it may have created
entries for them in /etc/fstab.
> 
> Another problem is that the 'fdisk -l' command returns no result
> (either as normal user or root user).
> 
Odd.  Does it return a non-zero value to the shell? Check with the
command sequence
	fdisk -l;echo $?

(I get a return value of 0, even after fdisk complains about /dev/md*
not containing valid partition table, while reporting both physical
disks, all the RAID metadevices, and detail of a USB key that is
attached to the PC)


Tim

-- 
Tim Frost <timfrost at xtra.co.nz>
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