[SOLVED] Mount Point hell

[MattS]

I am having some problems with file systems.
I have three partitions: Linux (ext3), Data (NTFS), Windows 7(NTFS).
I have acronis disk director and trueimage, so I can backup, change file system type, then restore.
Is there a file system type I can use for my Data drive that both Windows and Linux can both read and write.
Also, I would need to change the mount point of my home folder in both Windows and Linux, so if anyone knows how to do that (but not so important in windows since my dad knows how, but I don't see him for a while.
At the moment I have to boot into windows and copy the file I want to access on my documents folder, then since I don't want to reboot each time, I usually end up doing whatever on Windows anyway (the horror)

Necesary:
Windows-see Data, done.
Linux-see Windows, done, and see Data, not done.

Unnecasary but useful:
Windows-See Linux (without using ext2fs)

[oz]

Is there a file system type I can use for my Data drive that both Windows and Linux can both read and write.

Windows isn't very good at reading Linux file systems, so I generally use FAT32 for my own data storage. It works well as long as no individual files will be over 4GB in size.

Otherwise, you'd need to use NTFS as the file system, but for Linux to read NTFS file systems you'd need the ntfs-3g package, which might already be installed on your your Linux system.

[MattS]

It works well as long as no individual files will be over 4GB in size.

I'm doing acronis backups onto the data drive, but that isn't very often.
Do you know how to change the mount point of home, though.

[devils casper]

Necesary:
Windows-see Data, done.
Linux-see Windows, done, and see Data, not done.

Use default and umask=0 options for Data partition and you will have full access.
Edit /etc/fstab file :

/dev/<data_partition>  /<mount_point>  ntfs-3g  defaults,umask=0  0  0

Execute 'sudo mount -a' command or reboot machine.

[MattS]

I've done a backup for a start. I forgot to tell you that I want Data to be my home folder for Linux, not just acess it. Also, I now have a fat32 Data partition. I tried using mount manager and it works fine until you reboot, where it comes up with something about /home/matt/.IECauthority and /usr/???. It then boots up but doesn't load the desktop.

[D-cat]

You can't change the mount point of /home without having severe consequences to your desktop because that's where all your user configuration settings are. Your home directory must be in /home and it must be on a Posix type file system (ext2-4,Reiser...) because certain files (many hidden (leading dot)) are expected in certain locations and the permissions scheme matters. Subdirectories off your home folder can point to other locations (see below). Accessing file systems from other OSes is actually not very hard now. Boot from a live Linux CD and see if you can't restore the mount points the way you had it.

From the Linux perspective:
First you determine the mount points you want for what file systems. I'm an old fogey from Linux perspective, so all my static mounts are in /mnt. Excerpt from my fstab*:

/dev/sda3 /home      reiserfs  acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/hdb1  ntfs-3g   users,rw,gid=users,umask=0000,utf8=true 0 0
/dev/sdd1 /mnt/hdd1  vfat      users,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0

Hint: don't use ReiserFS if you can avoid it if you need access from another OS, stick to Ext2/3.

After all the physical mounts work (fstab adjusted accordingly), you can use symlinks off your home folder to quickly jump to a folder on another drive as if it was in your home folder... Say for example
/home/matts/Documents -> /mnt/c_drive/Documents and Settings/MattS/My Documents and
/home/matts/Download -> /mnt/data/Download .
There's pretty much no limit to the symlinks (Linux equivalent to Shortcuts, but better integration) you can make. Just note that Linux symlinks, while they can point to any file or dir on any file system, can only reside on a posix FS.

*Modified for easier reading: I actually mount by Disk-ID or UUID

From Windows perspective:
Assuming your /home partition is of ext 2/3 type, again, there have been strides in this field too. I don't blame you for not wanting to be limited to ext2fs. There is another way. Have a look at ext2fsd:
Ext2Fsd Project

That should give you a more native feel for accessing your Linux data from Windows. Good luck in your adventure!

[MattS]

Okay. I'll do the shortcut thingy but I'll need to actually mount the partition, though. At the moment I can't even see the data drive. I have mountmanager installed and I can install other stuff, now.
BTW, how do I make it so I don't need to type in a password to mount a partition.

[devils casper]

Add an entry of data partition in edit /etc/fstab file. You won't have to execute mount command again. OS will mount it at startup automatically.

Syntax :

<partition>   <mount_point>   <filesystem>  <options>

Let say, /dev/sda2 has FAT32 filesystem and you want to mount it at /media/data mount_point.

/dev/sda2    /media/data    vfat    defaults,umask=0  0  0

[MattS]

Windows is ready. Now how do I create this shortcut thingy. Then I'll get it to auto mount at login.

[MattS]

Let say, /dev/sda2 has FAT32 filesystem and you want to mount it at /media/data mount_point.
/dev/sda2 /media/data vfat defaults,umask=0 0 0

So can I change the mount point to /data or something. Otherwise I'll set it to /windows