Wiki Pick: Automatically Mount A Drive Using /etc/fstab

Relevant to all versions of PCLinuxOS

To automatically mount a drive using “/etc/fstab”, you need to add an entry for it in the “/etc/fstab” file with the correct parameters. Here's how you can do it as the root user.

NOTE: All commands are executed as the root user in a terminal window.

Step 1: Find the UUID or device path

Run the following command in a terminal window to get the UUID of the drive:

blkid

Look for the UUID of the partition you want to mount (e.g., “/dev/sda1”).

Step 2: Create a mount point

Decide where you want to mount the drive (e.g., “/mnt/mydrive”) and create that directory if it doesn't already exist:

mkdir -p /mnt/mydrive

Step 3: Edit “/etc/fstab”

1. Open the “/etc/fstab” file in a text editor with root privileges: nano /etc/fstab

2. Add a new line with the following format:

UUID=<your-drive-uuid> /mnt/mydrive <filesystem-type> <options> 0 0

Replace <your-drive-uuid> with the UUID you found.

Replace <filesystem-type> with the file system type (e.g., ext4, ntfs, vfat).

<options> can be something like defaults or noatime. For NTFS, you might want ntfs-3g instead.

Example:

UUID=123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174000 /mnt/mydrive ext4 defaults 0 0

Step 4: Test the “/etc/fstab” Entry

You can test if the entry is correct by running:

mount -a

If there are no errors, the drive should be mounted automatically at the specified mount point on the next reboot.

You can view this tip here, at the PCLinuxOS Knowledgebase Wiki.