12.3 Problem with partitioner and correct mounting of external HD

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Last week I did a new install of openSUSE 12.3 (64 bit). The system works fine. However, my external HD is mounted at /run/media/$user, so it is only accessible for one user. I want to mount it at /backup, so all users can access the HD.

I started partitioner to change the mountpoint. My first problem is that it takes a very long time for partitioner to load, it seems to hang at the message ‘initialising…’. Sometimes it takes at least 5 minutes to load, sometimes it doesn’t load at all. Does anyone knows what can be the problem? If it finally loads, the program functions correctly.

When I started partitioner correctly, I selected the partition of the external HD and changed the mountpoint to /backup. When I finish partitioner, the mountpoint is changed for /backup. But when I reboot, the mountpoint is /run/media/$user again, so the external HD is not accessible for all users. How can I change the mountpoint in such a way that the change is remembered at a reboot?

I hope someone can help me with these two problems. Please tell me if you need any more information.

2

Show us

cat /etc/fstab

The parameters probably need a tweek

3

Thank you for your quick reply.

Here is the answer of your question:

bennist@dhcppc0:~> cat /etc/fstab
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-MAXTOR_STM3160215AS_6RA6K6G0-part1 swap                 swap       defaults              0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-MAXTOR_STM3160215AS_6RA6K6G0-part2 /                    ext4       acl,user_xattr        1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-MAXTOR_STM3160215AS_6RA6K6G0-part3 /home                ext4       defaults              1 2
proc                 /proc                proc       defaults              0 0
sysfs                /sys                 sysfs      noauto                0 0
debugfs              /sys/kernel/debug    debugfs    noauto                0 0
devpts               /dev/pts             devpts     mode=0620,gid=5       0 0

ata-MAXTOR is my primary HD. The external HD is not listed in fstab. I tried editing fstab, but that made my system unbootable (I repaired it).

4

ok need fdisk -l as root with the external plugged in

5

Any Windu partitions on the disk? Found out once that an external disk we thought was broken, reported to need a chkdsk (?) when connected to a win7 box. The user of that box asked me to check the backup, since there was a power failure on the external disk when she was running a backup a couple of days before. Ran the chkds, went back to the openSUSE box, it still took some time, but not 5 minutes.

6

Here is the output of fdisk -l:

dhcppc0:/home/bennist # fdisk -l

Schijf /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 koppen, 63 sectoren/spoor, 19457 cilinders, totaal 312581808 sectoren
Eenheid = sectoren van 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sectorgrootte (logischl/fysiek): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
in-/uitvoergrootte (minimaal/optimaal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Schijf-ID: 0x0003e63b

 Apparaat Opstart   Begin       Einde     Blokken   ID  Systeem
/dev/sda1              63     4209029     2104483+  82  Linux wisselgeheugen
/dev/sda2   *     4209030    46154744    20972857+  83  Linux
/dev/sda3        46154745   312576704   133210980   83  Linux

Schijf /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204884992 bytes
255 koppen, 63 sectoren/spoor, 121601 cilinders, totaal 1953525166 sectoren
Eenheid = sectoren van 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sectorgrootte (logischl/fysiek): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
in-/uitvoergrootte (minimaal/optimaal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Schijf-ID: 0xeb1d175c

 Apparaat Opstart   Begin       Einde     Blokken   ID  Systeem
/dev/sdb1              63     8385992     4192965    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2         8386560  1953523711   972568576   83  Linux

sda is my primary HD, sdb is the external HD.

7

I find that if the BIOS is set to look for a floppy, when there is no floppy on the PC, that it can take gparted a long time to load.

8

Thank you! I removed every reference in the BIOS to a floppy drive, and now the partitioner starts quickly. So you helped met to solve that problem.

9

Yes, there is one Windows partition on the external HD and one Linux partition. I learned that the problem with the partitioner had to do with the BIOS looking for a floppy drive that wasn’t there.