[deepoint]

Hello from a Newbie,

I have a dual-boot system as follows:

5GB: Windows NTFS system partition
20GB: Windows FAT32 data partition
5GB: Linux root and swap partitions

I want to share the 20GB data with Linux but I am have trouble mounting the partition. I get an error saying:

"Error: File system not supported"

How do I go about setting it up?

Thanks for any help.

[FyberOptyx]

i would imagine your kernel having support for FAT32, do a google search for fstab and this should help you

[theGrim]

"Error: File system not supported"

Kernel does not have support for the filesystem type you are trying to mount.
When you goto mount are you using vfat?

mount -t vfat /dev/hd?? /mnt/local/directory
or try this
mount -t auto /dev/hd?? /mnt/local/directory
making sure that /dev/hd?? is your fat32 drive/partition.
to find out run
fdisk -l

if you still get
"Error: File system not supported"
Then you probably don't have support for vfat. You will either need to get a module for it or at the worst recompile your kernel.

[deepoint]

Thanks for the info Grim.

"mount -t vfat /dev/hda5 mnt/data"

where,

hda5=my FAT32 partition
data=the mount location

This works fine and I managed to access the data on an ad-hoc basis.

Previously I added a new line to the fstab....

"/dev/hda5 /mnt/data vfat users,owner,ro,umask=000 0 0"

to ensure that it was always mounted when I login. But that doesn't seem to work. Do you know how to add a line so that I wouldn't have to type it each time to access my FAT32?

Also, is it damaging not to unmount it before shutting down Linux. If so, could you also tell me if there is anyway that the system will do it automatically.

I run RedHat 9.0 dual-boot with Windows XP.

I am absolutely new to Linux but totally fascinated by it. Thanks again for your help.

[the_unforgiven]

"/dev/hda5 /mnt/data vfat users,owner,ro,umask=000 0 0"

to ensure that it was always mounted when I login. But that doesn't seem to work. Do you know how to add a line so that I wouldn't have to type it each time to access my FAT32?

To make it automount, add auto to the options list.

[theGrim]

setting it to "auto" does not make it automount it.
That only tells it to auto select what file system to use e.g. VFAT EXT3 MSDOS NTFS etc.
by putting it in fstab will cause it to be auto mounted.

Looks good to me. not sure why its not auto mounting on bootup.
Maybe try moving the entry up a few in /etc/fstab??

as for not umounting it before shutting it down.
As long as you tell linux to shutdown and it goes through the shutdown sequence then your fine. Thats one of the things it does when shutting down it unmounting all mounted file systems. If it didn't do this you would have problems with the linux partitions.
So your fine doing that.

You may want to take a look at this thread.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=99577

[the_unforgiven]

Originally Posted by theGrim

setting it to "auto" does not make it automount it.
That only tells it to auto select what file system to use e.g. VFAT EXT3 MSDOS NTFS etc.
by putting it in fstab will cause it to be auto mounted.

That is when you add auto to the FS part, not options.
Please read the manual page of mount carefully.

auto in options in fstab makes it mountable with -a option (mount all), which happens in one of the init scripts anyway.

What I asked him to do is to add auto in the options part and not as FS.

[theGrim]

Originally Posted by the_unforgiven

That is when you add auto to the FS part, not options.
Please read the manual page of mount carefully.

auto in options in fstab makes it mountable with -a option (mount all), which happens in one of the init scripts anyway.

What I asked him to do is to add auto in the options part and not as FS.

Yes . Sorry about that I realize you can add that to options. I saw the auto and was thinking FS type. didn't sink in you had mentioned options.
Another option to try.

[newbeginnings]

Weill, I'm new to this forum as well as linux, so first off hello everyone. But back to why I'm here. I am trying to mount a FAT32 partition but to do so i need to know what it's called. So as suggested above I tried to run fdisk, but....."bash: fdisk: command not found" was all I got. Everyone I've asked said that is unusual because fdisk should be installed by default. I tried googling "missing linux fdisk", "missing fdisk" etc. and came up empty handed. Anyone have any suggestions on what i should do? Thanx in advance. Running RH 9

thanx sether

[sether]

Originally Posted by newbeginnings

Weill, I'm new to this forum as well as linux, so first off hello everyone. But back to why I'm here. I am trying to mount a FAT32 partition but to do so i need to know what it's called. So as suggested above I tried to run fdisk, but....."bash: fdisk: command not found" was all I got. Everyone I've asked said that is unusual because fdisk should be installed by default. I tried googling "missing linux fdisk", "missing fdisk" etc. and came up empty handed. Anyone have any suggestions on what i should do? Thanx in advance. Running RH 9

you need to be root. either logout and login as root, or type su while logged in as regular user and enter the root password. then you should be able to do fdisk.