Create personal data partition both Mint and Win can access?

[gumby]

Thanks Oliver! I will try the program.

[gumby]

Fred and others,

Latest update on my long journey to Linux.

After re-verifying the MD5Sum and burning the CD with the program Oliver recommended, using the slowest speed, I tried to install again.

I was amazed that the new Live CD did not behave the same way as the previous one. On startup, it did some stuff that the previous one didn't do, like there were some command-style, white text on black background screens that popped up, saying "Opening..." this or that process. There was also a login screen that wasn't there previously, which was baffling because this was the Live CD and I didn't have any username yet. But I just ignored it and eventually the desktop appeared. It did seem to take longer to appear than with the previous CD.

All these differences with the previous CD led me to believe that Fred was correct, and the old CD was a bad burn. It did seem very weird to me that the old CD would run at all if it was incorrectly burned.

So I tried to install again and, in the edit partition window, ran into the same problem -- the Mount Point drop down menu was dimmed.

I thought that maybe the problem was with the original partitioning, which was done from the faulty CD. So I decided to go back to Gparted and deleted all the old partitions I had made, and created new ones. I also didn't give them labels, thinking that maybe the labels were the problem.

Then I tried to install again. When I got to the manual partitioning part, i was horrified to see that the Mount Point menu was still dimmed!

But then I pulled down the drop down menu for "use as" and set it as ext3.

Suddenly the Mount Point menu become undimmed and I was able to select "/"

But I am sure that I tried that with the earlier CD, and the mount point menu did not become undimmed! But maybe I'm not remembering correctly.

Anyway, I was finally able to install. Immense thanks to everyone, especially Fred.

I still have to mount those data partitions, and have one or two new problems, so I'm sorry to say you haven't heard the last of the whining newbie Gumby!

[gumby]

10.) Ok, now we will mount your data and Windows partitions in your /home directory so you will have easy access to them. This is pretty much a cut & paste operation. Where I have WindowsXP, Data1 and Data2 you can change the folder names to whatever you want them to be. Just be sure you change all the occurrences to match your choices. You should substitute your user name for mine in all cases. Open a terminal, you will find it in the desktop menu, and type:

mkdir /home/fred/WindowsXP
mkdir /home/fred/Data1
mkdir /home/fred/Data2

sudo su

echo "/dev/sda1 /home/fred/WindowsXP ntfs defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0 0" >> /etc/fstab

echo "/dev/sda8 /home/fred/Data1 ext3 defaults,noatime 0 2" >> /etc/fstab

echo "/dev/sda9 /home/fred/Data2 ext3 defaults,noatime 0 2" >> /etc/fstab

(There are no returns in the above lines.) Close the terminal.

Reboot your machine and select Mint once again. You should now have your Windows and data partitions mounted in your /home directory for easy access.

Fred,

Well, now that my new partitions don't have labels, how does your mounting code change? Or is there a quick and easy way to add labels to them after the fact?

Thanks again.

[Fred]

gumby,

The labels have no effect on what I gave you to mount the partitions. You won't be using them.

Fred

[gumby]

10.) Ok, now we will mount your data and Windows partitions in your /home directory so you will have easy access to them. This is pretty much a cut & paste operation. Where I have WindowsXP, Data1 and Data2 you can change the folder names to whatever you want them to be. Just be sure you change all the occurrences to match your choices. You should substitute your user name for mine in all cases. Open a terminal, you will find it in the desktop menu, and type:

mkdir /home/fred/WindowsXP
mkdir /home/fred/Data1
mkdir /home/fred/Data2

sudo su

echo "/dev/sda1 /home/fred/WindowsXP ntfs defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0 0" >> /etc/fstab

echo "/dev/sda8 /home/fred/Data1 ext3 defaults,noatime 0 2" >> /etc/fstab

echo "/dev/sda9 /home/fred/Data2 ext3 defaults,noatime 0 2" >> /etc/fstab

(There are no returns in the above lines.) Close the terminal.

Reboot your machine and select Mint once again. You should now have your Windows and data partitions mounted in your /home directory for easy access.

Thanks again.[/quote]

Thanks Fred. Just to be absolutely clear, your mkdir commands are single spaced. Your echo commands are double spaced. Can you take a look at these commands I'm going to use and verify that everything is correct?

Thanks again.

[Fred]

gumby,

That looks correct my friend. The single or double spacing means nothing. The spacing for the lines is in there only to make it easier to read. You copy and paste one line at a time into the terminal and hit "enter". Then you copy and paste the next line and press "enter". When asked for the password you put your user password in and press "enter". The password will not show on the screen.

Fred

[gumby]

It worked! Thanks again for all your help, Fred. I particularly appreciate that you understood that I am a newb who doesn't even know how to use Terminal. Indeed, had you not offered that last bit of advice, I would have pasted the whole thing into Terminal at once, instead of one line at a time!

[Fred]

gumby,

I am glad I was able to help you. Just be patient with yourself. You will learn. Remember, you didn't know how to get things done on Windows the first time you sat down in from of it either. Just give yourself a little bit of time and don't be afraid to learn and try new things. Anything you know is easy. Anything you don't know is hard.

If you can follow the above advice you will feel comfortable in Linux in less time than you might think.

Fred