after knoppix hdinstall fat32 partitions not available

**johnnylipps** · 10-09-2003, 08:15 PM

Hi, I've checked the archives and haven't been able to see my problem addressed. If this is a redundant post, please forgive me and point me towards the relevant post.
When I boot from the Knoppix cd I am able to read from my FAT32 partitions, but not write to or delete.
After I did a hard drive install, Debian now boots but I am unable to read these partitions. fstab does indicate that these partitions exist, but I'm not able to mount these partitions. I have tried a few different commands to no avail.
I'm under a bit of a time constraint as I'm going on tour in three weeks and would like to get a bunch of the data on the fat32 partitions onto discs. I have tried reinstalling windows and have run into huge problems there.
Any help that could be provided would be great, and responses off-list are okay.
ultimates[at]thewailingultimates.com

**rneff** · 10-09-2003, 08:29 PM

This is simple, but did you check all your permission settings?

**johnnylipps** · 10-09-2003, 09:02 PM

this may be naive but i assumed that if i was logged in as root i'd have full administrative permissions.
as i type this i'm running the knoppix live cd again. i've changed the writable status of all partitions which solves the deletion problem (funny how patient observation can come in handy). once i move them off this computer to my ftp i'm going to change all partitions to ext2 and start from scratch. thanks for your quick reply, sorry if this was a waste

**fingers99** · 10-09-2003, 11:40 PM

As root, go to /etc/fstab

open it up in an editor and remove any lines begining with a # except the one which starts

# partitions found by Knoppix

you can then reboot and do (as root)

mount -t vfat /dev/hd? /mnt

(take the cue from /etc/fstab as to what the hd? should actually be)

cd to /mnt

do an ls

and you should see all your Windows stuff. (If you want to do it graphically, try Kmenu > Systems > More Programs > File Manager Super User Mode).

This assumes a HD install.

**Tech2k** · 10-10-2003, 11:08 PM

or maybe cd to /mnt and add the mountpoints...at least i have to.

**Simon_Haddad** · 10-15-2003, 12:22 AM

Originally Posted by fingers99

As root, go to /etc/fstab

open it up in an editor and remove any lines begining with a # except the one which starts

# partitions found by Knoppix

you can then reboot and do (as root)

mount -t vfat /dev/hd? /mnt

(take the cue from /etc/fstab as to what the hd? should actually be)

* * * * * *Thanks, fingers99, I had the identical problem and that fixed it right up. I am still having a problem, though. I don't know how to keep those FAT32 Partitions mounted the next time I boot up, or, barring that, get Linux to re-mount them automatically on startup. Any ideas (anyone)

You can tell, I'm really new to Linux.

**RockMumbles** · 10-15-2003, 01:11 AM

Post your /etc/fstab file

~rock

**Simon_Haddad** · 10-15-2003, 03:18 AM

* * * *After digging for a while online, I changed my fstab to this:

Code:

/dev/hda3  /  ext2  defaults,errors=remount-ro  0  1
/dev/hdb6  none  swap  sw  0  0

/dev/hda6 /mnt/Documents vfat defaults 0 0
/dev/hdb7 /mnt/Multimedia vfat defaults 0 0

proc  /proc  proc  defaults  0  0
/dev/fd0  /floppy  vfat  defaults,user,noauto,showexec,umask=022  0  0
/dev/cdrom  /cdrom  iso9660  defaults,ro,user,noexec,noauto  0  0
# partitions found by Knoppix

* * * *It seems to work, but when I log in as somebody other than root, the drive will appear mounted on my Desktop, but the partition will be empty when I click it.*