USB Storage (HDD and Jump Drive) questions after HDD install

[joe_bfstplk]

Hi all--
I have recently installed (quite easily, thanks to the instructions found on this board--thank you!!) Knoppix 3.3 on my system, dual-booting with Win2k.

One thing that puzzles me, and it's probably due to my lack of experience, is that the Knoppix Live CD found my USB Jump drive and USB HDD perfectly if I plugged them in right after I typed Knoppix lang=us wheelmouse at the boot: prompt, but the installed version does not.

Should I have installed it while they were plugged in, so that they would be automatically stuffed into fstab?

I've added folders for both in my /mnt directory, so is it just as simple as adding a couple lines to fstab to point my computer in the right direction?

If so, what would I manually add to fstab to allow my computer to recognize them?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give!

C ya,
Dutch

[Markus]

Don't have a usb hd, but you need at least this line in fstab for usb support:
none /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs defaults 0 0

For my thumbdrive I have in fstab:
/dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 vfat noauto,users,exec,umask=000,uid=markus,gid=markus 0 0

And as root do:
cd /mnt
mkdir sda1
chmod 777 sda1

I'm assuming here your thumbdrive is also sda1, if not, change to what you have.
To find out do after plugging it in:
cat /var/log/syslog |grep sda

[joe_bfstplk]

Markus--
Thanks for the tips. I'll try them out and let you know how it works out. One question, though: where you set the gid to markus, would it be advisable to set the gid to disks if I have all users (myself and root) as members of the disks group, or should I use my named group, "dale"?

Thanks!

C ya,
Dutch

[joe_bfstplk]

Markus--
I followed your instructions, except for leaving off the "gid=(myusername)" part of the fstab line, and it works perfectly!

Here are the additions to my fstab file in case anyone can use them:

none /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs defaults 0 0
/dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 auto noauto,users,exec,umask=000 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1 auto noauto,users,exec,umask=000 0 0

I added two SCSI devices because I also have a USB-IDE adapter for a laptop HDD that I often use. I suppose it's as easy as adding another mountpoint folder to the /mnt directory and another line to fstab if I want to add another....

Thanks again, Markus, you're a lifesaver!

C ya,
Dutch

[Markus]

Glad it worked!

Sorry for the delay, knoppix.net seems to have some problems

I have the uid and gid only so that I get ownership when that root guy who always messes up my computer copies over files to the thumbdrive which I solely use for moving files between computers.

I added two SCSI devices because I also have a USB-IDE adapter for a laptop HDD that I often use. I suppose it's as easy as adding another mountpoint folder to the /mnt directory and another line to fstab if I want to add another....

Can't see why not, after all, the cdrom has by default two mountpoints at cdrom and cdaudio.
You might even want different mounts for your USB HD if you use it as both scratchdisk and sysbackup.

[joe_bfstplk]

Glad it worked!

Sorry for the delay, knoppix.net seems to have some problems

I have the uid and gid only so that I get ownership when that root guy who always messes up my computer copies over files to the thumbdrive which I solely use for moving files between computers.

Thanks again for the info. Root messes with your thumbdrive? Wierd. I've had no problems whatsoever with mine. It'd be nice to figure out how to be able to hot-plug it, rather than having to put it in when booting, although that's not so much a problem as just an inconvenience. I guess I'll eventually learn how to get it to hot-plug, as there's probably a small program hidden somewhere that will allow the computer to scan the USB for new items and prepare the computer to use them.

Thanks again!

C ya,
Dutch