I am so sorry, I don’t get it. It’ll be very kind if you give me some detailed steps of what I do, as I am not perfect in the command line options.
The mountpoint is the name of the directory where the filesystem should be mounted. So it will be the second field in the relevant line in /etc/fstab.
So taking an example from my own fstab file:
/dev/mapper/backups-var--tmp /var/tmp ext4 defaults,x-gvfs-hide,noatime,nodiratime,nofail,commit=300 0 2
the mountpoint is /var/tmp.
So you’d mount it from the command line with
sudo mount /var/tmp
So replace /var/tmp with the correct path from your own system.
Okay, so I keep the fstab with un-commenting the lines and run the command lines sudo mount /mnt/Data and sudo mount /mnt/Fun, right?
Correct.
[minaw@mina-manjaro ~]$ sudo mount /mnt/Fun
[sudo] password for minaw:
mount: /mnt/Fun: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.
dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.
mount: (hint) your fstab has been modified, but systemd still uses
the old version; use 'systemctl daemon-reload' to reload.
Everything you need to understand the problem, and correct it, can be found in the following article; all that is required from you is to read and understand it:
Cheers.
1 Like
Thank you so much for replaying.
I read it and have some questions if you don’t mind.
As I understood from reading and from my last error message, ntfs3 is mounting one drive and refusing the other. Is that meaning the other one is dirty? Does it need chkdsk?
It was working perfectly with ntfs-3g, but after the last kernel update, it doesn’t work. I think the ntfs-3g is not supported.
Second, do you recommend I should roll back to lts version of the kernel? Can that be a solution? Or that’ll be a temporary one?
Thanks in advance.
The short answer is yes.
If chkdsk is performed and ntfs3 still does not mount it, there could be deeper issues with your drive. The best resolution would then be to use chkdsk again, but use the advanced options to check for and repair bad sectors.
Some of these commands are given in the article I previously linked; otherwise use your favourite search engine, and search for ‘microsoft chkdsk’.
Note that such a scan will likely take a very long time to complete.
Okay, I will give it a try. I have a dual boot and can access windows easily. Hoping it’ll fix it.
But, can the chkdsk affect the data and delete anything?
But, it was working. If it can be a deeper issue -and I hope not-, wouldn’t it affect the drive even with ntfs-3g or even windows?
The drive is 2 terabytes. How much time can it take? Or it depends on the issue itself?
I am sorry for those many questions, but I just need to understand the issue correctly to deal with it. Thanks for your patience.
Only if that data happens to be in a damaged sector. NTFS is quite resilient (despite some forum opinions to the contrary); and one of the benefits of a jounaling filesystem is that data is usually recovered easily, where possible.
Yes, it would.
However (as you would have seen in the article I linked), ntfs-g3 actually ignores the dirty bit (and any damage, if it exists), and that is why it still gets mounted – any damage is also ignored, and eventually can cause greater problems. Windows is similar, in that you never know about any damage until you can no longer open a file, for example.
ntfs3 forces you to take action to fix the problem. You would likely have been unaware of otherwise, until it was too late.
2 TB = a long time, most likely - maybe set it to run over night; or, preferably at the weekend if you need access to your machine on weekdays.
I hope it doesn’t affect the data.
If the ext4 is readable by windows, I would switch to it as it works perfectly on Linux. But, afaik it is not readable.
When you said that, I noticed now that I have issues with this drive. When I rename some files, copy or delete them, they are disturbed. They are readable and I can see them, but can’t delete, copy or do anything with them. And I need to access windows to access them. May be this is caused by these damaged sectors.
If you only use USB drives for data transfer (not for storage) you could format one with EXFAT which is readable by both Windows and Linux; recovery of files from EXFAT, however, is virtually impossible when damaged. Some people prefer this filesystem, nonetheless.
Unfortunately, I want a format for storage drives not transferring USBs. But, how can exfat affect the storage drives?
I wouldn’t recommend EXFAT for long term storage; but some people still use it for that. It’s a filesystem best suited for USB drives.
EXFAT doesn’t use either Windows or Linux permissions; that can be an advantage. The only issue with it is the lack of recovery options; if a file is damaged it’s often lost for good. Files are able to be recovered more easily on NTFS (or any Linux filesystem).
By all means use EXFAT if you accept the risks. If you always have backups of that data, then the risk of losing it is minimised, at least.
@soundofthunder
I tried the chkdsk, and now I can auto mount the 2 drives through fstab.
But, I have another issue, I can’t access many of the data inside, I can’t delete, cut, rename, tag or duplicate files.
When I run this command sudo findmnt --verify, I get this:
[minaw@mina-manjaro ~]$ sudo findmnt --verify
[sudo] password for minaw:
/mnt/Data
[W] ntfs3 does not match with on-disk ntfs
/mnt/Fun
[W] ntfs3 does not match with on-disk ntfs
none
[W] non-bind mount source /swapfile is a directory or regular file
0 parse errors, 0 errors, 3 warnings
I don’t know what to do.
Is it only in Linux that you notice this? Are those files still accessible in Windows without any problem? Are you mounting the Windows system drive (C:) in Linux? - if so, that’s not a good idea (mounting a secondary partition or disk is preferred).
Post your current /etc/fstab content; maybe that will be useful to someone; otherwise, nothing comes immediately to mind.
I have never used findmnt --verify; the tool might not support ntfs3 (a guess). Keep in mind that most Linux tools are designed for use with native Linux filesystems, without much thought given to Microsoft (or Apple) formats. In any case, you’ll notice they are warnings and not errors; you can probably ignore them. Cheers.
Yes, it’s working normally on Windows.
Nope, I didn’t add it to fstab file.
Here you are:
GNU nano 7.2 /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' 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>
UUID=A999-BF76 /boot/efi vfat umask=0077 0 2
UUID=d4407709-5ea0-42a1-915f-202fc30174a2 / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0
UUID=01D6D6DDA6146800 /mnt/Data ntfs3 defaults 0 0
UUID=5E7E4E247E4DF575 /mnt/Fun ntfs3 defaults 0 0
/swapfile none swap defaults 0 0
Why you can’t access some of those files, I can’t say, however it seems likely to be permissions related. That’s a whole new topic in itself.
For now, mark the post that you feel solved the mounting issues, and then start another thread with the new issue.
Aside:- I just noted this threads title - are Data and Fun actually external USB disks? If so, they shouldn’t actually need to be listed in /etc/fstab; they should mount only manually using the disk mount feature in the taskbar. Just something to keep in mind. Cheers.
When I chose from grub the LTS kernel and changed the fstab back to /mnt/Data ntfs-3g auto,nofail,uid=1000,gid=1000,utf8,umask=022,defaults 0 0, it works fine and I can access all the files. With ntfs3 on the newest kernel, I can read, but can’t write to almost all files. That’s what I mean.
They are hard drives that I am sharing between Windows and Linux. I am adding them to fstab as I access them a lot on both systems and I don’t need to mound them dolphin panel with entering the sudo password every time I use them.
It’s possible that this additional issue stems from:
Is this the kernel that you’re using?