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Re: Mount w98 partition



On Thu, Feb 03, 2000 at 02:24:24PM -0800, davidturetsky wrote:
> I'm trying to mount my Windows98 partition from Linux
> 
> Cannot seem to work out the command

mount -t vfat /path/to/win98/partition /path/to/mount/point
For example if the Win98 partition is /dev/hda3 and you want it mounted
as /mnt/win98 then the command would be
mount -t vfat /dev/hda3 /mnt/win98
The -t switch tells mount what the filesystem format is - vfat in this
case.  The last part - /mnt/win98 - is the directory that the Win98
partition will appear under.  This directory can be pretty much whatever
you want - to a point - but it is customary to use subdirectories under
the /mnt directory.  Also, this must be done as root.

If you will be doing this often, I would suggest putting an entry into
you /etc/fstab file.  By using this file you will: 1) make the command
a lot shorter and 2) make it possible to mount and unmount the other
partition as a regular user.  As an example here's my /etc/fstab:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options>                  <dump> <pass>
/dev/hda1       /             ext2   defaults,errors=remount-ro 0      1
/dev/hda2       none          swap   sw                         0      0
proc            /proc         proc   defaults                   0      0
/dev/hdc4	    /zip	         vfat   user,noauto                0      0
/dev/hdd    	 /icdrom	      iso9660 user,noauto,ro	          0      0
/dev/fd0	       /floppy       vfat   user,noauto	             0      0
/dev/scd0       /scdrom1      iso9660 user,noauto,ro        	 0      0
/dev/scd1       /scdrom2      iso9660 user,noauto,ro            0      0
/dev/hdb1       /space/part1  ext2    defaults                  0      0
/dev/hdb2       /space/part2  ext2    defaults                  0      0
/dev/hdb3       /space/part3  ext2    defaults                  0      0
/dev/hdb5       /space/part4  ext2    defaults                  0      0
/dev/hdb6       /space/part5  ext2    defaults                  0      0
/dev/hdb7       /space/part6  ext2    defaults                  0      0

The first three uncommented lines will be found on virtually every Linux
system around - they are the basic filesystem, a swap partition, and the
proc filesystem.  The next line is my internal IDE Zip drive.  The first
column shows that the device is /dev/hdc4 (master device on the second
IDE channel - the 4 is because for some reason Zip disks come factory
formatted with the only partition being number 4).  The second column
shows that the disk will be mounted at the directory /zip

Now earlier I know I said that it is customary for devices mounted by users
to get mounted in subdirectories of the /mnt directory.  Well, it is *only*
custom.  In my case I decided I wanted it elsewhere.

The third column shows what filesystem to mount the drive as - in this case
it is vfat.  The fourth column is a very important one.  The user entry say
that regular users are allowed to mount and unmount this entry, and the
noauto entry tells the system to *not* mount this device at boot time or
when 'mount -a' is issued. (mount -a tells the system to mount all devices
listed in the fstab file)  This entry is very important for removable media
drives - if there is no disk in the drive at boot time the system gets upset.

Looking further through my fstab you'll see that my Zip drive, floppy drive,
and all three CDROM drives have the same user,noauto entries.  The primary
reason I can get away with such permissiveness is this is a single user
system.  If I were seeting up a "regular" multi-user system I would never
do such a thing.  But for the typical home system I see nothing wrong with it.

The last two comlumns are related to boot time checking.  Look through the
man page for the mount command and the fstab file for details on what
they mean, as well as more details on everything else I've gone over.

> I presume the idea is to mount the entire partition and then access the 
> files there through ordinary Linux resources

Yup, that's basically it.  Once the partition is mounted you access it just
like any other directory on your system.  I regularly mount a couple of
Win95 drives via Samba - the drives are in a completely seperate computer
that is downstairs.  But once I mount the drives I access them just like
any other directory on my system, the only difference being that access
times can be a bit slower and the Win95 drives occasionally disappearing
when the 95 box crashes.
-- 
Mike Werner  KA8YSD           |  "Where do you want to go today?"
ICQ# 12934898                 |  "As far from Redmond as possible!"
'91 GS500E                    |
Morgantown WV                 |  Only dead fish go with the flow.


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