[arch-general] how to mount external hdd

[hollunder at gmx.at]

On Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:33:01 +0100
<hollunder at gmx.at> wrote:

> On Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:31:13 -0300
> Denis Alessandro Altoe Falqueto <denisfalqueto at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Sergey Manucharian
> > <sergeym at rmico.com> wrote:
> > > On Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:03:08 +0100
> > > <hollunder at gmx.at> wrote:
> > >
> > > ..........
> > >
> > >> An external drive can be rather reliably identified and always
> > >> mounted at the same place using udev.
> > >>
> > >> This is somewhat problematic on arch linux tough.
> > >> For some reason the devices seem not to be created before
> > >> mount runs although udev runs before it.
> > >> This means that external drives do not get mounted along with all
> > >> the other drives specified in fstab.
> > >>
> > >> I personally wonder what the problem is since this method has
> > >> worked on other distributions.
> > >>
> > >> My workaround is simply another 'mount -a' in rc.local, at this
> > >> point in boottime the devices are created.
> > >>
> > >> Still this doesn't work reliably with one of my drives but this
> > >> is a separate problem (slowness).
> > >>
> > >> Philipp
> > >>
> > >
> > > Folks, you are discussing how to deal with "noob questions" etc.,
> > > but nobody paid attention to the more "deep" meaning of the
> > > initial question arisen by Philipp.
> > >
> > > I confirm the problem. So, how to mount an external HDD during the
> > > system start-up?
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > Sergey
> > >
> > >
> > 
> > 
> > If it is always connected, I would put a line on /etc/fstab so it is
> > mounted as any other ordinary partition.
> > 
> > If it is not always connected, I would make a script and put it in
> > /etc/rc.d. The script would be responsible to look if the disk is
> > attached and mount it. It would be good to use some udev rules to
> > make a fixed symlink for the disk, so the script has a fixed target
> > to find.
> > 
> 
> I already do a combination of udev and fstab which doesn't work.
> 
> Old rules that worked on my previous system:
> BUS=="usb", KERNEL=="sd?1", SYSFS{idProduct}=="(somenumber)",
> SYMLINK+="usbdisk200"
> 
> BUS=="usb", KERNEL=="sd?1", SYSFS{serial}=="(somenumber)",
> SYMLINK+="usbdisk400"
> 
> New rules with newer udev syntax:
> BUS=="usb", ATTRS{serial}=="(somenumber)", KERNEL=="sd?1",
> NAME="%k", SYMLINK+="usbdisk400", GROUP="storage"
> 
> BUS=="usb", ATTRS{idProduct}=="(somenumber)", KERNEL=="sd?1",
> NAME="%k", SYMLINK+="usbdisk200", GROUP="storage"
> 
> fstab:
> /dev/usbdisk400 /media/disk400  ext3
> rw,nodev,noexec,auto,noatime,async,users        0       0
> 
> /dev/usbdisk200 /media/disk200  ext3
> rw,nodev,noexec,auto,noatime,async,users        0       0
> 
> 
> What happens is that when 'mount -a' is run at boottime it says
> that /dev/usbdisk400 and /dev/usbdisk200 doesn't exist, consequently
> they don't get mounted.
> When rc.local with another 'mount -a' is executed it works (except
> that the /dev/usbdisk400 is too slow sometimes).
> 
> I'm looking forward to your ideas about what's happening.
> 
> Best regards,
> 	Philipp


I tried some more. This time I specified one of the usb harddrives by
UUID. I can mount is, so it works, but at boottime this method doesn't
work either.

I get:
special device UUID=number not found

same as I got:
special device /dev/usbdisk400 not found

So to me this looks like udev is not the problem this time.
So what is it, are usb devices not initialised yet when 'mount -a' is
run?
I added the usb_storage module to the modules array in rc.conf but this
didn't change a thing. If I read rc.sysinit correctly the modules are
loaded before 'mount -a'.

Help is appreciated.

Philipp