12 replies to this topic

[Baniboy]

I wasn't entirely sure where to put this but I stuck it in here for now. Anyway I have a small problem with a FAT32 partition on my drive.
I use this 100 GB partition on one of my HDDs to share it between WinBlows and Linux. I put my project files, photos, backups etc in it. When I was installing Ubuntu 10.04, it automatically set the drive mount point as "/windows". Now, whenever I started up my computer and logged in to Linux, it would automatically mount my FAT32 partition for me, and it would be available at "/windows/", which was very convenient for me, since I didn't have to manually mount it every time I wanted to do something with it.

Now, when I installed the crappy OS they call Ubuntu 10.10 (and yes, it's crappy...), I assumed it would automatically set the mount point of my partition to "/windows" (I don't know if there even is an option to do that anymore, btw). But it didn't. Now I have to manually mount the fatty partition every time I log in, which is frustrating. I then tried to solve the problem by using GParted to set the mount point (as I remembered that it had the functions to do so), but I found out I can't.

So I'm asking for help from the many Linux-people (I guess that's the correct expression ), if there are any left in this dead place. I would like to know if there is a way to set the mount point as /windows and have the computer mount it automatically again, or if there is a way to have it mounted on startup automatically.

[truefusion]

Mount points are stored in /etc/fstab. If you are not fond of editing it manually, there are a few fstab front-ends you can install. I use the program "mountmanager" for editing the fstab file and changing mount points.

/etc/mtab is a file that keeps track of the currently mounted devices. You'll see devices added or removed from here when using the commands mount or umount, and when third-party programs temporarily mount devices for you.

BTW, the next time you install Ubuntu you may want to try out the alternative CD. I find it easier to install Ubuntu and specify mount points with the alternative CD.

[Baniboy]

I installed Mountmanager as you suggested and I modified the mount points. I set the partition I wanted to be mounted in "/windows" and applied the new settings. What has happened now is that it's now owned by root. The whole partition. I can't modify and/or delete things unless I launch software with the sudo command. I tried to set that anyone can use the partition in Mountmanager but it didn't work. Also tried to change the owner through folder options using sudo nautilus but it couldn't change the user or user group. Any help in that?

I think I'm going to reinstall Ubuntu if I can't find a solution and set the mount point in the installer since there is a lot of bugs in here anyways, maybe I'll downgrade to 10.04.

[q9c9p]

Baniboy, on 06 January 2011 - 12:51 PM, said:

I installed Mountmanager as you suggested and I modified the mount points. I set the partition I wanted to be mounted in "/windows" and applied the new settings. What has happened now is that it's now owned by root. The whole partition. I can't modify and/or delete things unless I launch software with the sudo command. I tried to set that anyone can use the partition in Mountmanager but it didn't work. Also tried to change the owner through folder options using sudo nautilus but it couldn't change the user or user group. Any help in that?

I think I'm going to reinstall Ubuntu if I can't find a solution and set the mount point in the installer since there is a lot of bugs in here anyways, maybe I'll downgrade to 10.04.

Hello,

I hope you did not had to reinstall your system, but in case you did not the open up a terminal ( I know, I'm sorry you have to do this, please don't compare it to the clicketiclick way of windows...) and do:

gksudo gedit /etc/fstab

and in there add at the end

/dev/sdaX(where X is your partition number like sda3 or sda5)      /windows    vfat    defaults,dmask=007,fmask=117,uid=user,gid=user     0    0

and then do:

gksudo mount -a

or restart your computer.

I'm sorry you had to use a terminal, I know there is a way to do it with nautilus or the partition manager but I don't have a fat partition that is not an external drive that I hotplug and I usually do most of everything with the terminal because for me personally is faster since I type very fast...

Hope this helps you.

Ciao
q9c9p

[truefusion]

Baniboy, on 06 January 2011 - 12:51 PM, said:

I installed Mountmanager as you suggested and I modified the mount points. I set the partition I wanted to be mounted in "/windows" and applied the new settings. What has happened now is that it's now owned by root. The whole partition. I can't modify and/or delete things unless I launch software with the sudo command. I tried to set that anyone can use the partition in Mountmanager but it didn't work. Also tried to change the owner through folder options using sudo nautilus but it couldn't change the user or user group. Any help in that?

Sorry for the late reply, but you can change ownership using the chown command.

CONSOLE

sudo chown user:group /path/of/partition

Replace "user" with your username and "group" with the primary group your username is placed under (this is normally the same as your username). I had to do this too, but it has been a long time since i had to do this, and have just now remembered.

[Baniboy]

Thanks for the suggestions provided, but neither worked. Truefusion, using your command it returns that I'm not allowed to do it. With q9c9p's stuff, it just doesn't work.

[q9c9p]

Baniboy, on 12 January 2011 - 07:55 PM, said:

Thanks for the suggestions provided, but neither worked. Truefusion, using your command it returns that I'm not allowed to do it. With q9c9p's stuff, it just doesn't work.

Hello Baniboy,

excuse me if I ask, what does not work? could you explain more in detail?

Did you manage to edit the fstab file? Do sudo mount -a return some output? If yes, could you paste it here in the forum?

Thanks a lot and I hope I can still help you.

Ciao

q9c9p

[Baniboy]

q9c9p, on 12 January 2011 - 08:13 PM, said:

Hello Baniboy,

excuse me if I ask, what does not work? could you explain more in detail?

Did you manage to edit the fstab file? Do sudo mount -a return some output? If yes, could you paste it here in the forum?

Thanks a lot and I hope I can still help you.

Ciao

q9c9p

/dev/sdb3 on / type ext4 (rw,commit=0)
none on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
none on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
none on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/dev/sdb1 on /windows type vfat (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/dev/sdb4 on /home type ext4 (rw,commit=0)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/bani/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=bani)

And sdb1 is the one I'm trying to change.
By not working I mean I still don't get read-write access to the partition.

[truefusion]

Okay, so i managed to place myself in your position in more ways than one, and i've managed to get things working the way i intended. The key was setting umask to 0 (zero).

In your case, simply replacing the line that mounts your FAT32 partition in /etc/fstab with this should do the trick:

/dev/sdb1 /windows vfat rw,umask=0 0 0

Note, you may have to remount the partition for changes to take affect. (Restarting the computer will have the same effect.)

[q9c9p]

truefusion, on 16 January 2011 - 06:47 PM, said:

Okay, so i managed to place myself in your position in more ways than one, and i've managed to get things working the way i intended. The key was setting umask to 0 (zero).

In your case, simply replacing the line that mounts your FAT32 partition in /etc/fstab with this should do the trick:

/dev/sdb1 /windows vfat rw,umask=0 0 0

Note, you may have to remount the partition for changes to take affect. (Restarting the computer will have the same effect.)

I hope this worked out for you,

just in case use also the other tip from truefusion ( using chown -R youruser:yourgroup /windows )

Ciao,

q9c9p