storage device manager

[darththiek]

ok this may make me look like an idiot. i installed STORAGE DEVICE MANAGER because it is supposed to allow me to auto mount drives on my comp at startup. now when i startup my comp i get a message saying it could not mount device press S to skip or M for manual. i cant figure out how to fix this.

[atreyu]

What is your distro?

How exactly did you install the evil storage device manager?

[devils casper]

Post the contents of your /etc/fstab file too.

[BoDiddley]

Assuming your system does not boot itself at pre-determined times, why would you do that? Just curious.

[darththiek]

ubuntu 11.04, storage device manager was installed with ubuntu software center,

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
/dev/sda6 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda7 during installation
UUID=b8d61846-8a5f-4ac6-acea-5822b8dc4195 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/sdb /media/Data storage ntfs nls=iso8859-1,umask=000,user 0 0

the reason for the boot up is that my family are stuck on windows and wont try any thing else so i have to have a duel boot system the hard drive im trying to mount have mount at start up is an additional hdd i have just for storage and it needs to be accessible from windows also

[atreyu]

Try commenting out the /dev/sdb line (if you haven't done that already).

At first glance, you probably want /dev/sdb1, and I'd change the mount point to be something without spaces, just to be cleaner, but that's personal pref. Anyway, we'll go one step at a time. If you reboot and the system comes up as normal, then I guess we can say that was your problem. That other package you installed probably did not make that fstab entry - do you know what did?

The next step would be to manually mount your external drive, making sure we have the right device name, mount options, etc. Then we'll put it in /etc/fstab and reboot again.

[BoDiddley]

I agree with atreyu... there seems to be a couple of inconsistencies. The first, as pointed out would be the naming convention: you move from sda to sdb. With sda holding the mount point. I could be mistaken, but it seems like sda should be the sole naming convention, as indicated by sda6, with sda7 being the swap space. I have seen this writeup before, there is a way to make your devices consistent (naming).

Clearly, the 3rd party software load is causing the bad convention with ubuntu. Have you exhausted all avenues for resolving this within ubuntu - solely?

If yes, you should try altering the fstab file, as mentioned.

atreyu, probably has the advice you need. I strongly urge you to find a packaged resolution within ubuntu. I am Debian, which I understand is somewhatt similar. What I have found is that nothing I have had to load is not contained somewhere in a package. I have no 3rd party installs.

Additionally, my understanding of Unix is that all devices must be properly dismounted to maintain system integrity. This would be accomplished by a 'package' load automatically. Otherwise, after you get the proper mount established, unwittingly - the next reboot will still burn you.

I have no problem with my offline storage - it mounts and dismounts correctly through file manager. I basically feel that what you want to do is not consistent with either Windows of Linux operations. Even in Windows (dual boot) I have problems if I do not allow for a proper (Windows) disnmount because the offline file system is still open when I power down.

If you must do this - I (secondarily) suggest that you inform you family of the proper steps.

Again, I could be wrong - but it seems that what you are doing goes against the nature of off-line storage. You want off-line storage to be online storage dual booted. That is tricky, so it seems to me.

[BoDiddley]

I just remembered something else. My old internal drive is now my external drive, and I have a new internal drive (old drive has a bad spot which I isolated). I was only Windows then. But I had a problem because the master drive was being identified as the external drive. And the internal as the slave. Eventually I figured out that I had to take the jumper off the external (old) drive and place it on the new internal drive - then everything was fine. You are crossing many platforms with what you want to accomplish. Again, this is general computer usage stuff, non-specific.

[devils casper]

Comment out or remove /dev/sdb line in /etc/fstab file. Post the output of sudo fdisk -l command here.

sudo fdisk -l