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In order to access a block device, like a floppy, CD, or hard drive partition you need to mount it. To mount something, means to make it part of the Linux filesystem. This you do by associating a particular device file (a special file in the /dev directory) with a mount point (a directory where the contents of the block device will be located).
To set-up mounting you edit the /etc/fstab file. Each line consists of six space or tab separated columns. The six columns represent:
device mount_point filesystem_type mount_options dump check
For example:
/dev/hda1 /mnt/c vfat noauto,user 0 0
Note:
For further details refer to the fstab and mount man pages.
| Device | Description |
| hda | IDE hard drive, master drive on primary controller (primary master). |
| hdb | IDE hard drive, slave drive on primary controller (primary slave). |
| hdc | IDE hard drive, master drive on secondary controller (secondary master). |
| hdd | IDE hard drive, slave drive on secondary controller (secondary slave). |
| hdxn | Partition n on IDE hard drive hdx (/dev/hda1, /dev/hda2, /dev/hda3, etc.). |
| sdx | SCSI drive x (/dev/sda, /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, etc.). |
| sdxn | Partition n on SCSI drive sdx (/dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, /dev/sda3, etc.). |
| /dev/cdrom | Symbolic link to CD-ROM device. |
| /dev/scdn | SCSI CD-ROM drive. |
| /dev/fdn | Floppy drive n, with disk type automatically detected (/dev/fd0, /dev/fd1, etc.). (See the fd man page for manual floppy specification.) |
The directory to mount the disk or partition to. Can be anything you want, but it's common to create a directory in the /mnt directory, and mount to that directory. For example: /mnt/cdrom
The following are some commonly used filesystem types supported by Linux:
| Type | Description |
| auto | Autodetection of filesystem, for floppy disks. |
| ext2 | Linux extended filesystem 2. (The current main native Linux filesystem.) |
| ext3 | Linux extended filesystem 3. |
| iso9660 | CD-ROM filesystem. |
| msdos | MS-DOS filesystem. |
| ntfs | Windows NT filesystem. |
| vfat | Microsoft Windows 95/98/Me filesystem. |
The following are some common mount options:
| Option | Description |
| auto | Automatically mount filesystem at boot-time. |
| noauto | Don't mount filesystem at boot-time. |
| user | Allow users to mount filesystem. |
| nouser | Only root can mount filesystem. |
| ro | Read only. |
Used by the dump command for an ext2 filesystem backup. '0' for no dumping, '1' for dumping. Unless you plan to use dump to backup ext2 partitions, use '0'.
The order of filesystem checks at boot time. ('0' to not check, '1' for check first, '2' to check later.) Use '1' for the root (/) partition, '2' for other hard drive partitions, and '0' for everything else.
With an entry for the block device in the /etc/fstab file and the mount point (directory) created, to mount the device, enter:
mount mount_point
To unmount a device, be out of the mount point directory and enter:
umount mount_point
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