More Mount difficulties [Solved]

[T J Tulley]

The problem is mounting partitions containing Windows systems in Daryna, and relates to the UUIDs which are attributed to them.

By definition, UUIDs are unique - but in Daryna 3 partitions (ntfs, Win XP Pro) on 2 different disks, are represented in /etc/fstab with identical UUIDs. How come? I strongly suspect that this is related to my continuing problem - Daryna always boots with these 3 partitions being mounted to one /media/sdxx - not always the same one. Of course only one is accessible. Routinely I have to inspect, unmount 2, and re-mount them to their correct /medium.

Originally I had different problems in Celena, but now these appear to have been solved by using MintDisk to allow 'Mount ntfs partitions'. Of course I tried to do the same in Daryna, but there, no MintDisk utility.

During forum correspondence, I first mentioned UUIDs in a post a week ago, and Chi replied saying ~$ sudo vol_id -u device would give that information. I've printed out the manual for vol_id.

I've now tried this in Celena, where UUIDs are not required, and these particular ones don't appear in the fstab, although they are now correctly mounted and accessible. Even in this context, the command ~$ sudo vol_id -u (with each of the 3 problem partitions as argument) returns 3 identical values for the UUIDs - and these are 16-digit, whereas according to the Wikimint article explaining UUIds, they should be 32-digit, like those for ext3 partitions. From where does this command get its information?

As ever, I shall be most grateful for advice.

[viking777]

Theo, UUID's are a complete pain in the backside, always have been and always will be.

Open gparted the partition manager, right click on whatever partitions you are having trouble with and select 'unmount'. When they are unmounted right click on them again and select 'Label' - type something obvious like 'win_xp' (but it must be unique for each partition and you can use underscores as I have but you can't use slashes) then confirm in gparted that you want to commit that change of label/labels (you could do all of them at the same time or one at a time if you feel safer with that).

Then open Nautilus, right click on the /etc folder and select 'Open as Root' and type your sudo password. In the root nautilus window navigate to the file 'fstab' and make a copy of it just in case you get something wrong. Then open the original in a text editor and alter it so that the UUID's are changed to the labels you chose earlier.

Here is an example of what it should look like from my own fstab:

Code: Select all

LABEL=win_d  /mnt/win_d  ntfs-3g defaults 0 0

The LABEL and mount point in yours will be different to mine, the only thing you need to do though is to change your old UUID for your new Label. Save the file, then reboot and the problem will be solved for good.

[Muzer]

Note that foreach label, you might need to install some helper application.

For FAT:

Code: Select all

sudo aptitude install mtools

For NTFS:

Code: Select all

sudo aptitude install ntfsprogs

(might already be installed)



etc

[altair4]

Let me guess:

/dev/sda1: UUID="06E4035FE403507B" LABEL="(E)DI8:H7R" TYPE="ntfs"
You know how much I love that label
/dev/sdb1: UUID="06E4035FE403507B" LABEL="Backups" TYPE="ntfs"
You must have added a third one since Mar 09 if you now have 3 identical UUID

You had a third one back in Mar 09 that you had a problem with:
/dev/sdc1: UUID="2044A85E4B03DE64" LABEL="SATABkps" TYPE="ntfs"

I'm going to give you the same advice now as I did back then and it matches the advice you just got from viking777:

In fstab:

LABEL="(E)DI8:H7R" /home/theo/EDI8H7R ntfs defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
LABEL=Backups /home/theo/Backups ntfs defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
LABEL=SATABkps /home/theo/SATABkps ntfs defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0 1

You're going to have to create those directories first using mkdir /home/theo/EDI8H7R , and so on....

If you don't want your desktop cluttered with mount icons mount them to /mnt. For example:

sudo mkdir /mnt/Backups
In fstab: LABEL=Backups /mnt/Backups ntfs defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0 1

[T J Tulley]

Thanks for 3 replies in August 2009 - sorry I've been very busy.

My post was in 2008 and the problem has disappeared in Gloria. Now in fstab I simply call for /dev/sda1 and having created a mount point /media/sda1, the partition is mounted - and appears on the Desktop with its LABEL.

Please note that these 3 partitions were all labelled in Windows (no longer accessible in my box), they are ntfs partitions, and the Mint 'Label' facility doesn't work with ntfs partitions. They were all originally created by the Windows Partition Image program which is why they have identical short UUIDs.

I am now editing this post as SOLVED.