Drive won't mount

I didn't read through all of them, but here's a couple of easy things to try. Sometimes a program or one of the terminals can lock a directory or something inside it. You can list all of the file locks with the command 'lsof' try this: 'lsof' | grep '/media/sda5' | grep -v grep will list all locks on /media/sda5 If you see something like this: konsole 4011 scotts cwd DIR 8,2 20480 10125313 /home/scotts then you can kill that process number (4011 in this example) with: kill -9 4011 You shouldn't kill things as root too casually, you can bring the system down, but you won't damage anything. I found other references to Etch having the "drive busy" problem. Try this as root (or sudo before the command): apt-get --purge remove evms evms-ncurses Yes, all this seems harder than it should. Take comfort in the fact that in Linux, at least it is possible to poke under the hood on a much deeper level than Windows.

'mount' is telling you that the drive is already mounted... which was the goal. If you open up Nautilus (the Explorer-like file browser) and go to the folder /media/sda5, then you should be able to see your files now. I'm guessing that you are expecting them to show up on your desktop (like when you plug in your camera or a flash drive)... but they won't. These are "permanently mounted" -- so they don't clutter your desktop with them. However, you can create a "shortcut" to those folders on your desktop if you want. ...forgive me if I'm misunderstanding something...

I imagine your pretty frustrated now.... :-) In the first command, there should be a space between "-v" and "/media/sdb5". That's why you got the error. In the second command, after the -t option you need to specify the file system (e.g. -t ntfs). Since "/dev/sda5" isn't a file system type... it gave you an error. In your last command... 'mount'... it shows that your drive is mounted on /media/sda5 (with file system NTFS). (Woo-hoo!!) Can you see the files? (ls /media/sda5)

I logged in as root and tryed to mount sda5 again. Here are the results. 64studio:/home/paul# mount -t /dev/sda5 /media/sda5 Usage: mount -V : print version mount -h : print this help mount : list mounted filesystems mount -l : idem, including volume labels So far the informational part. Next the mounting. The command is `mount [-t fstype] something somewhere'. Details found in /etc/fstab may be omitted. mount -a [-t|-O] ... : mount all stuff from /etc/fstab mount device : mount device at the known place mount directory : mount known device here mount -t type dev dir : ordinary mount command Note that one does not really mount a device, one mounts a filesystem (of the given type) found on the device. One can also mount an already visible directory tree elsewhere: mount --bind olddir newdir or move a subtree: mount --move olddir newdir A device can be given by name, say /dev/hda1 or /dev/cdrom, or by label, using -L label or by uuid, using -U uuid . Other options: [-nfFrsvw] [-o options] [-p passwdfd]. For many more details, say man 8 mount . 64studio:/home/paul# mount /dev/hda1 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro) tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755) proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) procbususb on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw) udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755) tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620) /dev/hda3 on /home type ext3 (rw) /dev/sda5 on /media/sda5 type ntfs (rw)

Here are the results of attempting "$ sudo mount -v/media/sda5 mount: invalid option -- / Usage: mount -V : print version mount -h : print this help mount : list mounted filesystems mount -l : idem, including volume labels So far the informational part. Next the mounting. The command is `mount [-t fstype] something somewhere'. Details found in /etc/fstab may be omitted. mount -a [-t|-O] ... : mount all stuff from /etc/fstab mount device : mount device at the known place mount directory : mount known device here mount -t type dev dir : ordinary mount command Note that one does not really mount a device, one mounts a filesystem (of the given type) found on the device. One can also mount an already visible directory tree elsewhere: mount --bind olddir newdir or move a subtree: mount --move olddir newdir A device can be given by name, say /dev/hda1 or /dev/cdrom, or by label, using -L label or by uuid, using -U uuid . Other options: [-nfFrsvw] [-o options] [-p passwdfd]. For many more details, say man 8 mount .

That's a good try. But yeah, 'noauto' means that the drive won't mount automatically on reboot or with 'mount -a'. Set these back to 'defaults', and let us know the output of: $ sudo mount -v /media/sda5 It probably won't work... but tell us what the error messages are.

After cloning hda (clonezilla) I installed the image of the original installation of Mandriva and XP. This is the fstab file for Mandriva, which allows access to all the drives. I don't know if this info helps. /dev/hda1 / ext3 defaults 1 1 none /proc proc defaults 0 0 /dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0 /dev/sda5 /media/hd ntfs umask=0022,nls=utf8,sync,ro 0 0 /dev/sdb5 /media/hd2 ntfs umask=0022,nls=utf8,sync,ro 0 0 /dev/hda2 /media/hd3 ntfs umask=0022,nls=utf8,sync,ro 0 0 /dev/hda3 /media/hd4 ext2 sync,relatime 0 0 /dev/sdc1 /media/hd5 vfat umask=0022,users,iocharset=utf8,sync,noauto,exec 0 0

I tried the original changes suggested. The drives didn't show up. So I noted that other drives like the floppy had "rw,user,noauto". So I put that in the line, and the drives still don't show up. I just realized that "noauto" is probably not a cammand you want for a HD. I'll remove that and try again. # /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 /dev/hda1 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1 /dev/hda2 /media/hda2 ntfs rw,user,noauto 0 0 /dev/hda3 /home ext3 defaults 0 2 /dev/hda5 none swap sw 0 0 /dev/hdd /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0 /dev/hdc /media/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0 /dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0 /dev/sdc1 /media/usb0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0 /dev/sda5 /media/sda5 ntfs rw,user,noauto 0 0 /dev/sdb5 /media/sdb5 ntfs rw,user,noauto 0 0

Pelicandriver, Yeah... If you can see them in XP, then the partitions have to be FAT-32 or NTFS. It sounds like you just need to add them to your /etc/fstab file if they're not already there. That file is similar to "drive mapping" in Windows. To add them to fstab, first make the directories where you'll access them: $ mkdir /media/hda2 /media/sda5 /media/sdb5 Now add these lines to /etc/fstab /dev/hda2 /media/hda2 ntfs defaults 0 0 /dev/sda5 /media/sda5 ntfs defaults 0 0 /dev/sdb5 /media/sdb5 ntfs defaults 0 0 (Note: check to see if /dev/hda2 an the rest are already there... if they are, then we've got a different problem.) Once you've added the lines, do: $ sudo mount -a If it works, it won't say anything. It only says something if there's a problem. If it works.... then look in /media/hda2 and the rest to see your files. They'll now be there every time you boot. Good luck!

Hi Pelicandriver, http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=132094 It starts by running: sudo fdisk -l And looking at the output. If you don't understand... post your output here.

NTFS partitions might be problematic...

I booted up the Studio64 live cd. None of the drives would mount. But, it could see the network. I then booted the Mandriva live. It could access all the drives and partitions.