Why won't Linux allow me to mount my Windows partition?

agentchange · 06-10-2006, 11:23 PM

OK. I found this Novel Documentation which supposedly tells me how to do anything and everything, so you may not hear from me anymore. I do have this question though, so that might be a hint otherwise.

I am still working with limited diskspace:

hda1 Windows 4.2 gigs
hda2 swap 0.5 gig
hda3 Linux 3.1 gigs

For some reason, it will not let me mount the Windows partition. It says that it can't be found in the /etc/fstab or the /etc/mtab. I reinstalled Linux once already, formatting the former Linux partitions and starting over, giving Windows an extra 500 megs of breathing room, and, at first, everything seemed alright. However, for some reason, it installed the same limited 1.8 gig Linux system, which probably isn't going to work for me. That's why I am reading up, so I can install a complete system that will do what I want it to. However, I want to make sure that this same thing isn't going to happen with the Windows partition not being mounted. Is that just a matter of making a little entry to the fstab and mtab in order to make things right?

I'm still not sure how I am going force the complete 2.5 gig install when it wants to only install the 1.8 gig package, but I haven't gotten that far. Any insight will be greatly appreciated.

syg00 · 06-10-2006, 11:45 PM

Sounds like you're not using the full mount command

Code:

mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/somewhere

Presumes Suse ship NTFS in the kernel.

agentchange · 06-11-2006, 12:02 AM

My Windows partition is FAT32. So would I then type the same command, replacing ntfs with fat32? I am very new to typing commands, so what example of "somewhere" would I possibly use?

Nylex · 06-11-2006, 12:03 AM

You use "vfat" for FAT32.

peter72 · 06-11-2006, 12:59 AM

Somewhere would be any directory you want.

You can put it anywhere you have a directory.

I suggest in the /mnt to keep it logical, but it is up to you.

Just make a directory and call it win or windows or vfat.

It may be easier to use the YAST2 tool to do this, especially coming from windows. There's disk management gui's within this interface.

As I don't use SUSE very often (at least lately), I don't know the name specifically.

For command line do this in a konsole:

Code:

mkdir /mnt/windows
mount -t vfat -o uid=agentchange,gid=users,rw /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows

Pete

Tje · 06-11-2006, 11:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by agentchange

My Windows partition is FAT32. So would I then type the same command, replacing ntfs with fat32? I am very new to typing commands, so what example of "somewhere" would I possibly use?

Hi mate...some tips from me for you..

you can see your partition table, so that you know whether linux detected your partition correctly using this command

Code:

# fdisk -l        

output example:

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1        3187    25599546    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2            3188        9729    52548615    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5            3188        5100    15366141    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda6            5101        5738     5124703+  83  Linux
/dev/hda7            5739        9445    29776446   83  Linux
/dev/hda8            9446        9509      514048+  83  Linux
/dev/hda9            9642        9729      706828+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

Note that fdisk command is as root, unless using sudo.
Here you can see that /dev/hda1 and /dev/hda2 is a Windows NTFS.
you can check whether it is mounted or not using this command

Code:

$ df -h

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda6             4.9G  3.0G  1.6G  66% /
udev                  379M  152K  379M   1% /dev
/dev/hda7              28G   18G   11G  63% /home
/dev/hda1              25G   20G  4.5G  82% /mnt/win_c
/dev/hda5              15G  4.7G   10G  33% /mnt/win_d
/dev/hda8             487M  8.1M  453M   2% /tmp

df command does not need to run as root.
Suppose the NTFS /dev/hda1/ is not mounted yet..
just use this --> $ mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1/ /mnt/win_c

if the directory /mnt/win_c does not exist, just make a new folder there, as a root

Usually, you dont need to specify the file system, because somehow linux can automatically detects the file system so just this command: "$ mount /dev/hda1/ /mnt/win_c" will do OK..

Tje