4DED42CF.9000008 at verizon.net - Nils

[Roy Strachan]

Hi Nils (and Doug)


Roy Strachan wrote:
> Just add the line as originally suggested -
> /dev/sdc1 /mnt vfat ro
> 
> It is simpler to do this way, but not always 100% effective.  Using
> the UUID is a little more work but *will* work if you are having
> problems with the simpler method.

Yes, it is simpler but it isn't guaranteed to work. It really depends
on 
the device where the disk is located today and from previous posts it 
looks like it isn't always at /dev/sdc1. Using UUIDs (or labels) is the 
way to avoid errors due to changing device names. But in a post in the 
original thread the 2TB partition didn't show up with the blkid
command. 
Therefore it is unlikely that it is seen by the fstab entry, no matter 
if you use device names or UUIDs.


Please read the step by step, I think I was more clear there.  Use -
sudo fdisk -l to get the current device designation for your 2TB drive.
Then type -
sudo blkid -o value -s UUID  /dev/sd_whatever_fdisk_gave_for_2TB-drive


> At any rate what you
> now need to do is tell the system about it which is what the entries
> for the two internal drives do for them, and what adding the
> /dev/sdx1 line will do for your USB drive.
> 
> >    Do I add it to fstab anyway?
> 
> yes, that is how you can get the system to see the drive.

No, IMHO it is unlikely that it would help because to me it still looks 
like the partition in question isn't seen by the system as a mountable 
partition, possibly because there are file system errors. Furthermore
if 
you use fstab to tell the system about the partition, you don't see the 
possible errors if the mount fails. If you use the mount command on the 
command line, you can immediately check the error messages and there is 
no need to clean up the fstab file later.

> Step by step How To
> 
> First step -
>   In a terminal type - mkdir  /mnt/2TB   do not use sudo, you (not
> root) want to be the owner of the 2TB directory.  You can confirm
> that is what happened with ls -l /mnt.

Please try this on your own system, it doesn't work. Only root can make 
a subdirectory in /mnt.

Actually I did try it on my normal working system and it worked.  Due to
your suggestion I tried it on another system and it failed, as I should
have known it would.  On investigating I found that at some point,
probably when mucking with NFS, I changed the permissions -

sudo chmod a+rwxt /mnt

The devil is in the details.  Doing this does make life easier when
saving the files because you *do* now own the directory and the use of
sudo is not required.  I agree that this was a bad instruction to give a
relatively new user.  Sorry Doug.



> ***** The part above is what the installer did *********
> ***** The next line is what you need to add - the 0 0 / 0 1 / 0 2 are
> not needed right now
> /dev/sde1                                                            
>         /mnt/2TB       vfat     ro

Obviously you are as confused as I am due to the changing system. First 
you suggest to use /dev/sdc1 and now /dev/sde1. That isn't helpful IMHO 
because Doug probably can't handle the resulting error on his own.

No, I'm not confused, but you're right, I probably confused Doug.  My
intent was to use what he was seeing at that moment, but of course the
moment keeps changing. :o(


Nils

It's always good to have someone else proofread.  It's easy to make a
mistake or to know what you mean but not say it clearly.  This proves I
am not a good technical writer.  Oh, to write like Dennis Ritchie
(author of 'The C Programming Language').

Thanks
  Roy