Cannot mount other drives on same HDD

[kewartist]

Hello, before I describe, what seems to be fairly straight forward for most of the users of this forum, I would like to explain why I am here. My knowledge is basic compared to the standsard shown in this forum. I have an old Toshiba Protege 3110 with a 300Mhz CPU. Main advantage it is very light but mainstream modern OS are too demanding, W2000 ran at a snail pace. I installed W98SE and it runs well. But I was not able to find drivers for all the new mobile storage to run on the USB1.1port, since the HDD has only 6Gb. I searched the web and found freebyte.com offering a list of laptops leading me to Debian. I downloaded Debian 5.0.3 i386 and it installed itself instantly on my 3110 laptop anfd seems to work ok, even though a bit slow compared with W98SE. It instantly recognized my 16Gb USB stick! Now the problem. When I open 'Computer' in Debian I can see the other 2 FAT32 partitions on the HDD. One has W98SE on it and the other all my files. However when I click on them it says 'CANNOT MOUNT VOLUME. You are not privileged to mount this volume.' After having searched this forum for several hours yesterday night I know that there is massive awareness about this problem. I am sorry, my problem is that I do not understand most of what is suggested. I understand that there is a file called fstab which should hold all the information regarding the drives. I looked around and found Root Terminal and tried to search for etc/fstab but not result. Then I looked into the Filesystem and found the folder. It opens in the Editor. Compared to other examples shown on the forum I can see that in my fstab the two FAT32 drives are not listed (I had to copy the file from the laptop, have to set up internet later):
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda2 / ext3 errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hda6 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0

The two drives shown in 'COMPUTER' are not shown here in fstab where they are needed in order to be able to mount them. I do not know how to find them and how they are named in Debian, i.e. hda1, 3, 4, 5?

May be I got bogged down yesterday night by trying to find a solution in the forum which shows step by step what to do. But is there a User Guide for real Beginners which offers in easy step-by-step instructions?

I am looking forward to your reply. Thank you in advance.

[KeithHedger]

First off you need to find out what the partitions are so do

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sudo fdisk -l

this will list all the partitions on the system ie

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Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0008db66

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1           16414       19457    24450930    5  Extended
/dev/sda2   *           1         608     4883728+  83  Linux
/dev/sda3             609        5471    39062047+  83  Linux
/dev/sda4            5472       16413    87891615   83  Linux
/dev/sda5           16414       17050     5116671   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6           17051       17687     5116671   83  Linux
/dev/sda7           17688       19457    14217493+  83  Linux

once you know which partition you want to mount do

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sudo gedit /etc/fstab

(you may want to back up this file before altering it in case anything goes wrong)
Add a line to the end such as

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/dev/sda6       /media/Rescue           ext2    defaults        0       2

then save and quit gedit do

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sudo mkdir /media/Rescue
sudo chown YOURUSERNAME:YOURUSERNAME  /media/Rescue
sudo mount -a

and your prtition should mount ok (sda6 on /media/Rescue in this example) and if alls well will mount automatically next time.
hope this helps

P.S. you may want to change the "defaults" above option to "user" instead (without quotes) for more info on fstab try "man fstab"

[kewartist]

Thank you very much for the fast reply Keith. Just to show you where I stand. When you say do 'sudo fdisk -1' i only understsnd to put it into the Root Terminal. Is there another way? I was told this was the wrong command and I should use 'fdisk -l'. This wonderfully produced a list of all partitions like you show.
Disk /dev/hda: 6495 MB

Device boot
/dev/hda1 W95 FAT32 (this must be the primary with W98SE)
/dev/hda2 Linux
/dev/hda3 Extended
/dev/hda5 W95 FAT32 (this must be the logical with my files)
/dev/hda6 Linux swap / Solaris

Please forgive me but I rather sound ignorant. There is much to learn. I just found that su can be used in TERMINAL.
When you say add /dev/sda6 /media/Rescue ext2 defaults 0 2 to fstab, I understand you want me to add my hda1 and hda5 in that form to the fstab file?
I tried gedit and it gave me this warning: while connecting to session manager: authentication rejected, reason: none of the authentication protocols specified are supported and host-based authentication failed, then fstab was opened in Text Editor.
How do I back up?
I just had a look at 'man fstab'

Thank you

[fsmithred]

sudo is not set up by default. Just do it as root in a terminal, and the commands will work without sudo.
Before you open gedit as root, make a backup copy.

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su
(give root password)
cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.backup
gedit /etc/fstab

I think you can ignore the warning you got. Add a line like the one suggested. Save the file.
(Note the leading slash on /etc/fstab. It's important for locating the file correctly.)

Edit: add a line like that for each partition you want to mount, and when you create the mountpoint with mkdir, create a unique one for each partition. (/media/part1 and /media/part2 for instance.)

If you wanted to try a simple command-line text editor, you could do

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nano /etc/fstab

Navigate with arrows, ctrl-key commands are listed at the bottom of the screen. Useful if the graphical display isn't working, and a lot of people find it easier to stay on the keyboard.

2nd edit: I forgot a leading slash.

[milomak]

try the following in a terminal

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su -
<enter root password and press enter>
mkdir /mnt/data
mount -t vfat /dev/hda6 /mnt/data
ls /mnt/data

[milomak]

try the following in a terminal

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su -
<enter root password and press enter>
mkdir /mnt/data
mount -t vfat /dev/hda5 /mnt/data
ls /mnt/data

if the last command lists files you would expect to see, add

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/dev/hda5     /mnt/data/    vfat     users,defaults

to /etc/fstab.

then type:

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mount -a

EDIT: changed to correctly reference hda5

[kewartist]

Thank you for your help. Another little step clarified.

I have tried what I understood Keith suggested:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda2 / ext3 errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hda6 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/hda1 /media/Rescue ext2 user 0 2
/dev/hda5 /media/Rescue ext2 user 0 2

and created the additional directory but to no avail it did not work after re-booting.

Is it posible to insert the lines for the two devices hda1 and hda5 directly in the correct order into fstab? How would they be written? HDA1 is a primary FAT32 partition with W98SE installed and HDA5 is logical FAT32 partition containing all my data. Thank you

[fsmithred]

You only have one mount point listed for two partitions. Each partition needs its own. If you like calling it Rescue, then call them /media/Rescue1 and /media/Rescue2 (and create both of those with mkdir), but I'd call them something else, like windows and data. (Note: milomak suggested putting the mount point(s) under /mnt instead of /media. That's the more traditional way to do it - fixed drives mounted under /mnt, and removable drives mounted under /media, but either way will work. Just make sure that each fstab entry corresponds to the right mount point.)

Also, you've got the wrong partition type. Where you have ext2 it should say vfat.

I used different options on hda5. With this configuration, only root can write to /media/windows, and any user can write to /media/data.

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/dev/hda1 /media/windows vfat defaults 0 2
/dev/hda5 /media/data vfat rw,auto,umask=0000 0 2

Here's a link to a howto for more information -
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=30249

[fsmithred]

Uh, in case that wasn't clear above, if you call them windows and data, you'll have to create those two mountpoints with

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mkdir /media/windows
mkdir /media/data

[kewartist]

Thank you fsmithred and milomak for all your help. Because of this we achieved the first result.

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda2 / ext3 errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hda6 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/hda1 /mnt/windows vfat defaults 0 2
/dev/hda5 /mnt/data vfat rw,auto,umask=0000 0 2

I followed your mapping and took on the reasoning about mnt and media. Well, the data volume is now mounted and accessible. It is shown on the desktop as /mnt/data (2.2 GB). However for the windows partiton still no success. I did exactly the same as for data shown by milomak
At ls /mnt/windows I get
ls: cannot access /mount/windows@ no such file or directory.

[kewartist]

Sorry, I have to report total success on this excercise. I do not know what happened of course but the Windows partition now also shows on the desktop and can be accessed. Thank you again for all yor help. A lot to learn. Where to tweak the system and customize it better.

A few more things to do and I have been able to extend the life of this old laptop. I hope you can point me in the right direction on the forum.
1. I need to sort out internet access and Wi-Fi. With W98SE I used a wireless Netgear PCMCIA card and Netgear software.
2. I need more storage to make use of the laptop when travelling and have a Western Digital 2.5" USB2.0 hard drive. Western digital says on its support forum all Linux questions need to be referred to the Linux OS.
3. And to be able to use it for business which applications would you recommend given the fact that I need to communicate with the Microsoft world.

Thank you again

[fsmithred]

1. wifi - see if the Netgear shows up in the output of the command, lspci
and post the output here. (hint: put it between the code tags, and it's easier to see.)

2. What format is the WD drive? Will you be using it with any windows computers? If you're only going to use it with linux, it's probably better to format it as ext3, so that it's compatible with linux permissions and ownership on the files. If you'll be using it with both win and linux, keep it as ntfs. I think there's a good howto for ntfs in the howto section, but I'm too tired to go look for it right now.

3. openoffice should already be installed. If that's too fat for your computer, you could use abiword for documents, I think gnumeric for spread sheets, and power point viewer. I don't think you mentioned how much RAM this computer has. If it's not a lot, there are things you might do to trim the memory use.

[Inspirare]

I got similar question about mounting
Using instruction I get

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   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        6374    51199123+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2            6375       60800   437176845    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5            8669       21416   102398278+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6           21417       60800   316351948+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda7            6375        8307    15526759+  83  Linux
/dev/sda8            8308        8668     2899701   82  Linux swap / Solaris

For the start I've wanted to operate with sda5
I used

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su
nano /etc/fstab

And add last line

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# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
/dev/sda7       /               ext3    errors=remount-ro 0       1
/dev/sda8       none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/scd0       /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0
/dev/fd0        /media/floppy0  auto    rw,user,noauto  0       0
/dev/sda5       /media/Rescue           ntfs    defaults        0       2

Then I've created "Rescue" folder with

sudo mkdir /media/Rescue
sudo chown YOURUSERNAME:YOURUSERNAME /media/Rescue
sudo mount -a

Now I can see mounted disc in system,but when I try to access it I get "couldnt enter folder media\Rescue"

I've tried to edit it with context menu,it seems ok,but all changes are rollback when I close the window,ant when I tried to access it I got "dont have enought rights error enter "

seems like it's something with folder access permission,now I'm reading about chmod ,but maybe it's smth else?

well I tried chmod -R u+rwX,g-rwx,o-rwx /media/Rescue
they try to work,but gets "Operation not supported"

[fsmithred]

@Inspirare

I think you should be able to read what's on the drive, and root should be able to write to the drive. To get read/write access to ntfs, you need ntfs-3g.

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aptitude install ntfs-3g fuse-util
adduser Insprirare fuse

Edit the fstab line (this is all on one line)

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/dev/sda5  /media/Rescue ntfs-3g noatime,noexec,uid=1000,gid=1000,umask=002 0 0

Then

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mount -a

Note: this assumes that your user ID and group ID are 1000 (they should be if you're the first user on the system.) You can check with the command, "id".

Edit: I'm pretty sure that changing ownership of the mount point does nothing. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

[Inspirare]

@fsmithred

Thanks a lot!Works fine now.
Can freely access to disk

and yes, when you're adding user you must also add group

addgroup fuse

[fsmithred]

and yes, when you're adding user you must also add group

addgroup fuse

addgroup fuse
Creates the group named fuse. That part should have already been done automatically when fuse-utils got installed.


adduser fred fuse
Adds fred to the group named fuse.

In some situations, it's appropriate to only let root have rw access, and to allow others read-only. For that, nothing additional needs to be installed.
See this thread - http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=49027

[kewartist]

Hi fsmithred, Thank you for all your help and suggestions. Just been busy with the tax return.

I will try your suggstion with Netgear card. Sorry with me it is always explain more: (hint: put it between the code tags, and it's easier to see.)

I see that you think openoffice is best solution. Downloaded it already as DEB vesrion but not yet installed. Your are right Portege only has 128 RAM,need top be careful. Good night

[fsmithred]

When you're composing a post, there's a row of buttons right above the composition box. Clicking on the Code button creates html tags, and if you paste things between the tags, they come up in a code box.

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like this

If you want to mark your thread as Solved, edit your first post. It would be better to start a new thread for the wifi.

[kewartist]

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I see, thank you 

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How do you mean mark in edit? Delete the text in first post and write it is solved? 

Thanks for pointing out a new post for wi-fi. I also thought this would make more sense. By the way noticed you are in a differnt time zone from the Uk.

[fsmithred]

Across the pond, here. No, don't edit or delete the text from the first post. Just add "Solved" to the subject line, so people can easily see that the thread doesn't require attention. (or people looking for an answer to the same question will know that there's really an answer in that thread.)