xubuntu server refuses to auto mount spare hard drive

[redrummer]

I built and xubuntu headless server a few months back. I have a 40G drive to hold xubuntu and another 400G drive to back up that drive to, as well as two other computers.
My problem is with the 400G drive. Whenever I restart the server I have to mount the drive all over again. I've edited the fstab file numerous times using every technique I could Google. I've also used a few of the GUI type disk managers and haven't had the first bit of luck either way.
I did notice that the first drive is listed as sda1 and my cdrom as sda2. When I formatted the 400G drive, I did it as one big partition and it only shows up as sdb. I can mount and write to it just fine. I'm thinking this might have something to do with why it won't auto mount, but I don't know for sure.
Does it have to be sdb1 for it to work? And if so, how do I get it to do that? Will I have to reformat the drive into two parititions?

[Lazydog]

What does your fstab look like?
What command are you using to mount it by hand?
What does fdsik report

[redrummer]

Fstab looks like this right now.

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc                                       /proc           proc         defaults                    0  0  
# /dev/sda1
UUID=11fa8246-4fcf-4a52-8f1c-e2630c163020  /               ext3         relatime,errors=remount-ro  0  1  
# /dev/sda5
UUID=6d6ac19b-b334-4bb4-a4d0-25ef42e9ba39  none            swap         sw                          0  0  

/dev/scd0                                  /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660  user,noauto,exec,utf8       0  0  
/dev/fd0                                   /media/floppy0  auto         rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8    0  0

What I did was copy the sda1 line

# /dev/sda1
UUID=11fa8246-4fcf-4a52-8f1c-e2630c163020  /               ext3         relatime,errors=remount-ro  0  1

and pasted it after the sda5 line, then changed it to say

# /dev/sdb
UUID=(inserted the drive's UUID)  / media/backupdrive             ext3         relatime,errors=remount-ro  0  1

but that didn't work. I've tried other ways as well.

To mount it manually, I'm using

sudo mount /dev/sdb /media/backupdrive

and that works fine and dandy.

When I fdisk the sdb drive, I get this

 sudo fdisk /dev/sdb

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 48641.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help):

Is that what you're asking for with the fdisk?

[Lazydog]

I was hoping you would have pressed 'p' after in fdisk to show how it is partitioned.

Anyway add this to your FSTAB

/dev/sdb       / media/backupdrive    ext3    rw,user,exec    0 0

You might have to play with the flag to get wehat you want.

[redrummer]

For what it's worth, here's what I get when I "P" the fdisk.

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdb: 400.0 GB, 400088457216 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 48641 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x2ba8aca9

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1       48641   390708801   83  Linux

I'll go paste that line into the fstab and report back.

[Lazydog]

Change /dev/sdb to /dev/sdb1 above.

[redrummer]

I tried that after I saw it on the fdisk. My fstab now looks like this

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc                                       /proc           proc         defaults                    0  0  
# /dev/sda1
UUID=11fa8246-4fcf-4a52-8f1c-e2630c163020  /               ext3         relatime,errors=remount-ro  0  1  
# /dev/sda5
UUID=6d6ac19b-b334-4bb4-a4d0-25ef42e9ba39  none            swap         sw                          0  0  
# /dev/sdb1       / media/backupdrive    ext3    rw,user,exec    0 0
/dev/scd0                                  /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660  user,noauto,exec,utf8       0  0  
/dev/fd0                                   /media/floppy0  auto         rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8    0  0  

I just restarted again and it still won't mount. Or should it not have the # in front? I figured it should because sda1 and sda5 do. I'm still trying to figure out what sda5 is, but that's for another time.

[Lazydog]

Yeah, remove the '#' at the beginning of the line.
'#' is a comment marker and the line is ignored by the system.

[redrummer]

That didn't work either, but I'm going to have to revisit this another time. A new problem has presented itself. I made that last change to fstab (took out the #) and installed a few updates to xubuntu and when I restarted, TightVNC suddenly doesn't want to connect to my server anymore. I can reach it fine through putty, but not VNC.
I'm about to give up and just buy a monitor and a KVM switch.