Mounting drives problem

[Janet]

Im using Mandrake 8.0 and from the user I try to mount both the cdrom and FDD from the desktop.I get the error "mnt/cdrom file or directory does not exist" I change permissions, I go to root and change permissions and users and still Im told I dont have the authority. I change the etc/fstab adding user and still no go. What else can I do ?? !!! :confused: :mad:

[Derango]

From the looks of the error, you forgot the "/" in front of the path. The propper command should read "mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom/"
Without the /, it thinks your looking for a mnt directory in the current folder.

Another suggestion I might have is that the /mnt/cdrom direcrory dosent exist. you may need to create it, although with mandrake I doubt you do.

[ 25 May 2001: Message edited by: Derango ]

[thescribe7]

When you said go to root, did you mean login as root? if not try SU from terminal. If I am misunderstanding please disregaurd. :)

[Coral Sea]

With my hardware, Mandrake has always detected the CDROM and CDRW drives automagically during installation and put them in /etc/fstab so that they're mounted the first time the PC boots after installation (and forever after).

The entry for mounting the CDROM drive in /etc/fstab looks like this:

/mnt/cdrom /mnt/cdrom supermount fs=iso9660,dev=/dev/cdrom 0 0

You should be able to mount the CDROM drive manually (so long as it is not already mounted) by issuing:

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

If you get error messages, try unmounting the drive first by issuing:

umount /mnt/cdrom

Do all of the above as root.

[Janet]

Thanks,
Tried as root the mount commands. error as follows:
cant find /dev/hdb in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab. Tried unmount error : command not found.
Ive checked my fstab file and it exactly as you said. I even tried changing it to another line out of a book no luck. I changed it back again before trying the mount command.
Still stuck !! :D

[Linuxcool]

OK, Janet, the reason the command unmount wasn't found is that it is spelled umount . Note there is only one ' n ' in umount . I hate whoever came up with the idea to call unmounting a drive ' umount '. Bah! You could create a symbolic link to ' umount ' and call it ' unmount '. That way no mattter how you spelled it, it would always work.

Your original error message indicated that mnt/cdrom didn't exist. Enter the commmand ls /mnt and see if the directory ' cdrom ' does exist. If it doesn't exist, you'll have to create it using the command mkdir /mnt/cdrom .

If you could post a copy of your fstab file, that would help greatly.

[Janet]

Here tis,
fstab. Hope you can help.

/dev/hda6 / ext2 defaults 1 1
none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0
/mnt/cdrom/mnt/cdrom supermount fs=iso9660,dev=/dev/cdrom 0 0
/mnt/floppy/mnt/floppy supermount fs=vfat,dev=/dev/fd0 0 0
/dev/hda1 /mnt/windows vfat user,exec,umask=0,codepage=850,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0

[Inctoan]

Umm shouldn't it be like this
/dev/cdrom/ mnt/cdrom supermount fs=iso9660,dev=/dev/cdrom 0 0
/dev/floppy /mnt/floppy supermount fs=vfat,dev=/dev/fd0 0 0

If not, sorry for the misinformation :o

[demetrius]

Nope, the supermount entries for cdrom and floppy have the 'dev=' at the end which takes care of the dev entry. Only thing I see wrong is:
/mnt/cdrom/mnt/cdrom supermount fs=iso9660,dev=/dev/cdrom 0 0
should be:
/mnt/cdrom /mnt/cdrom supermount fs=iso9660,dev=/dev/cdrom 0 0

there is a space missing between the first and second /mnt/cdrom's. Same error exists for the floppy entry. Not sure if this is a typo in copying the contents of fstab or if thats the way it is in fstab. If thats the way that the entries are in your fstab file then that is probably your problem.

[demetrius]

BTW, in Mandrake and any other distro that uses supermount you should really never even have to manually mount and umount your cdroms and floppies. Supermount takes care of that for you automagically

[Janet]

Sorry out of town for a couple of days. Well I added the gap to fstab and went to mnt in root and changed permission for cdrom and floppy. Also checked that there was both a cdrom and floppy directory.
Back to try again and the same error.
Unable to find command
file or directory
file: /mnt/floppy does not exist.
I type mount floppy in the command line and again I get error to the effect nothing in fstab.
Any more ideas ?? I cant think what to do and such a simple thing !! :confused:

[Strike]

Janet, it's always good to post EXACTLY what you typed and EXACTLY what it gave back (cut and paste from a terminal window).

But what you might have to do first as root for this stuff to work is:

mkdir /mnt/cdrom /mnt/floppy

This will make those two directories so that the CD and floppy can be mounted at those points.

[Janet]

Hello Strike,
I know this is going to sound pathetic but I cannot cut and paste from my terminal . Im running Mandrake 8.0 running only KDE. So I have to type it all out.
I have done a ls /mnt in normal user which says permission denied. As root it shows me that I have 4 directories cdrom , disk , floppy , and windows. I thought maybe Id change the permissions on those directories to allow normal user but it didnt work and I still cannot use the floppy or cdrom from Normal user.

[mjb0314]

Originally posted by Janet:
<STRONG>Hello Strike,
I know this is going to sound pathetic but I cannot cut and paste from my terminal...</STRONG>

That's ok, it took me awhile to figure this out. If you have a three button mouse, use the left mouse button to select the text you want to copy. Then use the middle button to paste. If you have a two button mouse, I believe you can press the left and right buttons together to emulate the third button for pasting.

HTH

[Janet]

Hi again,
Here is what I typed in and the result. One point is that after I unmounted and then mounted the cdrom drive I went back again as normal user to KDE and received the same message as in my one before last post meaning I coundnt mount the drive.
[janet@localhost janet]$ mount /cdrom
mount: can't find /cdrom in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
[janet@localhost janet]$ mnt /cdrom
bash: mnt: command not found
[janet@localhost janet]$ mount /dev/cdrom
mount: can't find /dev/hdb in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
[janet@localhost janet]$ umount /mnt/cdrom
umount: only root can unmount /mnt/cdrom from /mnt/cdrom
[janet@localhost janet$ su
Password:
[root@localhost janet]# mount /cdrom
mount: can't find /cdrom in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
[root@localhost janet]# mount /dev/cdrom mnt/cdrom
mount: mount point mnt/cdrom does not exist
[root@localhost janet]# umount /mntcdrom
umount: /mntcdrom: not found
[root@localhost janet]# umount /mnt/cdrom
[root@localhost janet]# mount /mnt/cdrom
[root@localhost janet]# ls /mnt
cdrom/ disk/ floppy/ windows/
[root@localhost janet#

[mikeparks]

Originally posted by Janet:
<STRONG>Hi again,
Here is what I typed in and the result. One point is that after I unmounted and then mounted the cdrom drive I went back again as normal user to KDE and received the same message as in my one before last post meaning I coundnt mount the drive.
[janet@localhost janet]$ mount /cdrom
mount: can't find /cdrom in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
[janet@localhost janet]$ mnt /cdrom
bash: mnt: command not found
[janet@localhost janet]$ mount /dev/cdrom
mount: can't find /dev/hdb in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
[janet@localhost janet]$ umount /mnt/cdrom
umount: only root can unmount /mnt/cdrom from /mnt/cdrom
[janet@localhost janet$ su
Password:
[root@localhost janet]# mount /cdrom
mount: can't find /cdrom in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
[root@localhost janet]# mount /dev/cdrom mnt/cdrom
mount: mount point mnt/cdrom does not exist
[root@localhost janet]# umount /mntcdrom
umount: /mntcdrom: not found
[root@localhost janet]# umount /mnt/cdrom
[root@localhost janet]# mount /mnt/cdrom
[root@localhost janet]# ls /mnt
cdrom/ disk/ floppy/ windows/
[root@localhost janet#</STRONG>

You don't need to type the command "umount /mnt/cdrom" if you haven't even mounted the cdrom in the first place. From what you are showing, you were able to "mount /mnt/cdrom" as root. Now, you didn't show that you did that as regular user. If you did however, and it did not work, please read the error carefully, and tell us what it is.

Permission problems are usually so, when the message says "user permission denied" or something like that. If it says "cannot mount /mnt/cdrom" or "no medium found" it is because there is not a cd in the cdrom drive. Make sure you have something in there to mount. Same goes for your floppy drive. You can only mount it if there is a floppy disk present in the drive. Mandrake should have done everything correctly, and the fstab should be right. But if you are still stuck, you can always refer to the manuals, man fstab, man mount.

[ 31 May 2001: Message edited by: mikeparks ]

[bdg1983]

As posted by mikeparks, it seems as if 'mount /mnt/cdrom' worked this time.

Always have a cd or floppy in the drives before mounting them. And do so as root unless you have /etc/fstab setup to allow non-root users to mount drives.

You should be good to go now.

[TheLinuxDuck]

Janet:

One thing to point out is that when mounting a device, unless it is explicitly listed in the /etc/fstab file, you need to supply the device first, and then the mount point, as:

<STRONG>mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom</STRONG>

If the mount point <STRONG>IS</STRONG> listed in the /etc/fstab, then you only need to supply either the /dev/cdrom, or the /mnt/cdrom, as you did after su'ing to root.

[teeitup]

I think a point needs to be made here.

A "user" cannot mount a device.\

A "user" may mount a mount point if it has an entry in fstab with the appropriate permissions.

This is all spelled out in the man page for mount. Most Linux books make this point clear also.

Good Luck,

[Linuxcool]

Janet, you typed in so many combinations that you got lucky and hit a couple. The commands you need to type in to mount your drives are as follows:

mount /mnt/windows
mount /mnt/floppy
mount /mnt/cdrom


Type them in exactly that way. Don't leave out anything. Just make sure that when you mount the floppy or the cdrom that you have a disk in them first. To unmount them just put a ' u ' in front of mount and you're all set.

You can mount your drives as root, but as a user you're going to have trouble. You can mount your windows partition as a user, but not your floppy or cdrom. They aren't set up to allow a user to mount them. You need to add the word ' user ' to your fstab file entries for the floppy and cdrom. Use the entry for your windows partition as an example to edit your fstab file entries for your floppy and cdrom.

[Janet]

OK I went to fstab put user, in both lines after supermount. Went to terminal as user and did a mount /mnt/cdrom and floppy . Windows it said was already mounted. no error messages. Then I went back to KDE and tried to open the floppy via Kword but couldnt get into the /mnt directory it had a lock on it. Couldnt see any other way to get to the floppy. I went back to the icon in KDE but got the same message unable to run the command specified the file or directory /mnt floppy does not exist.
Im sorry to waste your time on this but I seem to be missing something here. Ive read plenty of literature on this and have gone through all the options. It shouldnt be this hard to just read a file on a floppy
should it ??

[Linuxcool]

This is just a quick reply. I didn't notice before in your fstab file that your floppy and cdrom drive have supermount. This feature automatically mounts and unmounts your floppy and cdrom for you whenever you insert or remove the disks. That's why you got the error message that they're already mounted.
This is what the Linux-ManDrake website says about supermount:

"So, you don't have worry about mounting them and unmounting them. The CD-ROM, Floppy disk, and other removable devices utilize the Supermount utility. Supermount manages removable media such as floppy disks, CD-ROMs and Zips similar to the way other operating systems do. It allows you to change disks without using the traditional Unix commands "mount" and "unmount". Supermount detects media changes automatically."


The windows partition is another matter. It doesn't have supermount so you'll have to use the ' mount /mnt/windows ' command to mount and ' umount /mnt/windows ' to unmount it.

OK. So when you want to use the floppy or cdrom, just insert a disk and you're all set. To use the windows partition you'll have to mount it manually.

As for the other problems you mentioned, I don't have any answers right now.

[ 31 May 2001: Message edited by: Linuxcool ]

[Linuxcool]

You said that you added ' user ' after supermount. Your floppy and cdrom entries should like this:

/mnt/cdrom /mnt/cdrom supermount user,fs=iso9660,dev=/dev/cdrom 0 0
/mnt/floppy /mnt/floppy supermount user,fs=vfat,dev=/dev/fd0 0 0


[ 06 June 2001: Message edited by: Linuxcool ]

[enzo250gto]

Janet,
Check out the HOWTO at this address. I had some of the same problems and this clearly spells it out and should solve some of the confusion. http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/CDROM-HOWTO.html
It has a whole section on how to mount. In this HOWTO it has some additional commands which I have yet to see posted in this discussion. Hope this helps.