Hi there all.
I need someone to point me towards a users manual for this app, or an answer to my questions.
I am trying to mount partitions that are on internal disks in my computer. Both ntfs and ext4.
However it was not so easy as it sounds, using the DISKS app.
fstab is updated automatically by the 'disks' app, the mounted 'icon' is showing for the partition in the file manager after a restart, but I get the message, "Could not display "MEDIA"", when I click to open it in the file manager.
I'm pretty sure it's to do with the "mount point" and the "identify" options, but please point me in the right direction.
All my other shares are mounted in the /home/media/ directory.
EDIT -
sudo mount -a shows
mount: /mnt/724d9a57-d1f3-4ff3-b198-fed5949f1809: mount point does not exist.
mount: /mnt/306fb701-d5f3-4460-8e01-3db3305dfc27: mount point does not exist.
I'm not sure if there's a manual for this, the Gnome suite of applications is notoriously bad at documentation. But, I can try to help with it.
There are two main directories used for mounting drives: /mnt and /media. There is no difference, practically speaking, between these two locations, but conventionally /mnt is used for more permanent set ups, and /media is used for removable drives. Basically, the system can detect whether they are plugged in through USB or directly to the main board.
The mount -a command attempts to mount all drives listed in the /etc/fstab. But the directories where it's supposed to mount them need to exist already. That means that the directory 306fb... needs to be created upfront for this to work. However, this type of directory is also created and destroyed automatically as you mount/unmount drives. I know this is true for at least the ones plugged through /media i.e., external drives. I assume this is the case here as well.
To be clear, you do not need to run the command mount -a yourself. You can, if you want, it's not going to cause any harm, but the idea is that these should be mounted automatically at boot (unless you don't want that to happen, which you can configured as well).
Can you show us the options for those drives as they appear in Disks?
Hi there, thanks for the reply. Now I get it. The problem was that the 'disks' app was suggesting the mount point in the /mnt/.... directory that didn't exist.
Sorted that by copying the 'Mount Point' that was shown in the 'disks' app once I had mounted that partition manually.
This is normal, since the directory is created on the fly when you mount in the drive, and deleted afterwards when the drive is unmounted. If this didn't work earlier I guess there was probably a misconfiguration issue somewhere.
But, you can also just create a new directory as well. The only problem I see with that is that you're using a custom location instead of the more conventional /mnt or /media. It's not a technical problem, but it's just... weird
Hi there, me again
what's the trick with creating a directory in the "/mnt/" directory.
I have tried being a "sudo su" user, but still permission denied.
Is this because I don't create the directory myself, but should let the OS do that when it restarts, having set the 'correct' location in the DISKS app firstly, then restarting?
You can change to the root user for the duration of the shell session (as long as the terminal is open) with su - and entering the password for the root user. But you would've had to set this up when you installed Zorin OS.
Ideally, that's what should happen. When it comes to mounting drives, this location is accessible to the background process that detects and mounts the drives. If not, you can try changing in Disks the location to /media.
But don't worry too much about this if you already have it working with another location. It's not going to mess with your system or anything.
I had to move the mount point to inside the /media/user-name/ directory for digiKam to be able to see the picture library on an internal ntfs disk. The /mnt/ location and the new /admin:/media/zcdadmin/ location didn't allow digiKam to "see" the pictures at all. (regardless of the 'sudo' or 'sudo su' or root user)
The entry in 'fstab' was automatically added as expected, however I had to start-over with a 'clean' fstab file (free of all mention of the previous internal partition's mounting attempts).
So, with no other options selected in the DISKS app for each partition, other than "mount at startup" and "Show in user interface", a reboot resulted in the partitions showing in Nautilus and the sub-directories were openable. However no automount.
As I suspected earlier on, the 'Mount Point' and 'Identify As' were the fussy settings that I needed to set in the DISKS app to get it right. The settings that were showing in the mounting options by 'default' were not working for me. (and /mnt/ could not be seen by digiKam).
These worked for me:
Mount Point=/media/user-name/partition-name/
Identify As=UUID=--***** ........ with NO partition # at the end.
This resulted in the following lines in 'fstab':
UUID=724d9a57-d1f3-4ff3-b198-fed5949f1809 /media/zcdadmin/MEDIA/ auto nosuid,no>
UUID=306fb701-d5f3-4460-8e01-3db3305dfc27 /media/zcdadmin/SSD_Spare/ auto nosui>
UUID=66AAEB3BAAEB0681 /media/zcdadmin/E_DATA auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-sh>
So now the partitions are auto-mounted and available to the third party programs that I use.
Hope this helps some other newbies.
and big thanks to you zenzen for your help and patience, again. cheers CD
Nice, thanks for sharing. I forgot to mention that about /media: that's a generic folder that many users can use (if they exist) so it's actually /media/zenzen or whatever your username is. Nice catch!
Marked your post as the solution to keep things organized and make it easier to find later on if someone looks for a similar issue
Just to add, make sure the partition you are accessing is separate from that where Windows resides as read/writing to a Windows partition can lead to file corruption:
