Cannot mount USB drive because of wrong mount option

Asked by fidel

Hello.

Right now I can't mount my USB drive because I made a mistake when specifying the mount options. I changed them using right-click on my USB icon while it was mounted. Now when I try to mount it again, it gives this error. The problem is that I don't know how to change the option again, because the drive tab is available only when the drive is mounted. I went to /etc/fstab and there's nothing there (only the cd-rom mount options).

Can anybody help?

Thanks very much.

PS: I've been several hours searching for an answer to my problem, but I didn't manage to find it in any forum.

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fidel
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Revision history for this message
marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said :
#1

Please tell us coincise but something more about the error you have done, where and what have you modifed... the /etc/fstab ?

Thank you

Revision history for this message
fidel (direccion-publica) said :
#2

Hello Marco.

I didn't change the fstab file. What I did was the following:

- I introduced the USB drived and it was automounted.

- I discovered that it was mounted in read-only mode, so I right-clicked in the icon in the desktop, when to the Drive tab (if I remember well) and manually wrote the options for the mounting. I made a mistake there.

- Then I unmounted the drive and introduced it again, and there was when I received that error.

My conclusion: somewhere my mistake was saved, but I have no idea where (it's not in the fstab file).

Thanks very much again.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#3

Can you give the output of:

cat /etc/fstab; mount; sudo fdisk -l

Thanks

Revision history for this message
fidel (direccion-publica) said :
#4

So sorry, but now I don't have access to that computer. As soon as I have access, I'll write again.

Thanks.

Revision history for this message
fidel (direccion-publica) said :
#5

Hello.

I was travelling and I didn't have access to this computer until today. The output for

cat /etc/fstab; mount; sudo fdisk -l

is the following (it's in Spanish; if you don't understand something, just ask me):

Disco /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 cabezas, 63 sectores/pista, 60801 cilindros
Unidades = cilindros de 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Identificador de disco: 0x0004b6f4

Disposit. Inicio Comienzo Fin Bloques Id Sistema
/dev/sda1 * 1 14082 113113633+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 14083 60801 375270367+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 14083 46717 262140606 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 46718 59585 103362178+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 59586 60801 9767488+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disco /dev/sdf: 32.1 GB, 32119980032 bytes
15 cabezas, 15 sectores/pista, 278819 cilindros
Unidades = cilindros de 225 * 512 = 115200 bytes
Identificador de disco: 0x04030201

Disposit. Inicio Comienzo Fin Bloques Id Sistema
/dev/sdf1 229 278820 31341504 b W95 FAT32

Thanks very much.

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#6

Thats ONLY the output of: sudo fdisk -l

Please run ALL the commands and give the output

Thanks

Revision history for this message
fidel (direccion-publica) said :
#7

Sorry, I'm not a Linux expert, I'm only an Ubutu user. I didn't realize that it was not a single command.

I'll do it tomorrow, thanks again.

Revision history for this message
fidel (direccion-publica) said :
#8

Hello again.

Here you have the complete output for the three commands:

cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'vol_id --uuid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=d70b3403-3d9e-4aae-ba2a-95c29d029797 / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda7 during installation
UUID=c809dc26-d0dc-4ca3-aafa-aa17cc62c97d none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
/dev/sdf1 /media/sdf1 vfat defaults 0 0

mount
/dev/sda6 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.28-16-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw,mode=755)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/fidel/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=fidel)

sudo fdisk -l
Disco /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 cabezas, 63 sectores/pista, 60801 cilindros
Unidades = cilindros de 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Identificador de disco: 0x0004b6f4

Disposit. Inicio Comienzo Fin Bloques Id Sistema
/dev/sda1 * 1 14082 113113633+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 14083 60801 375270367+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 14083 46717 262140606 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 46718 59585 103362178+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 59586 60801 9767488+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disco /dev/sdf: 32.1 GB, 32119980032 bytes
15 cabezas, 15 sectores/pista, 278819 cilindros
Unidades = cilindros de 225 * 512 = 115200 bytes
Identificador de disco: 0x04030201

Disposit. Inicio Comienzo Fin Bloques Id Sistema
/dev/sdf1 229 278820 31341504 b W95 FAT32

Thanks very much again.

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#9

is the output of:

file /media/sdf1

an error about the file not existing? If so run:

sudo mkdir /media/sdf1; sudo mouunt /dev/sdf1

The mount point MUST exist. It is not mount's responsibility to create the mount points for block devices.

Otherwise all looks well. You even have an entry in fstab for the device which makes things tonnes easier.

Revision history for this message
fidel (direccion-publica) said :
#10

I'm sorry, but I think I didn't explain myself very well. I'm going to start again.

First of all, please see below the correct output for your commands (the previous ones contained an entry in fstab because I was experimenting with the system => administration => storage devices (or however its name is in English).

My problem is the following: when I insert the usb drive, it doesn't automount (as it did before) because there is a "wrong mount option" (this is what the error message says). I know why this happens: because the last time it was automounted, I changed an option and made a mistake, so since I unmounted it, I wasn't be able to automount it again.

I can mount it in different ways, but I just want to recover the correct functioning of the automount option. So my question is: where are these options saved? How can I change them?

Thanks very much again (I hope this will be useful for somebody else!).

OUTPUT OF THE COMMANDS

cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'vol_id --uuid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=d70b3403-3d9e-4aae-ba2a-95c29d029797 / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda7 during installation
UUID=c809dc26-d0dc-4ca3-aafa-aa17cc62c97d none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0

mount
/dev/sda6 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.28-16-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw,mode=755)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/fidel/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=fidel)

sudo fdisk -l
Disco /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 cabezas, 63 sectores/pista, 60801 cilindros
Unidades = cilindros de 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Identificador de disco: 0x0004b6f4

Disposit. Inicio Comienzo Fin Bloques Id Sistema
/dev/sda1 * 1 14082 113113633+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 14083 60801 375270367+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 14083 46717 262140606 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 46718 59585 103362178+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 59586 60801 9767488+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disco /dev/sdf: 32.1 GB, 32119980032 bytes
15 cabezas, 15 sectores/pista, 278819 cilindros
Unidades = cilindros de 225 * 512 = 115200 bytes
Identificador de disco: 0x04030201

Disposit. Inicio Comienzo Fin Bloques Id Sistema
/dev/sdf1 229 278820 31341504 b W95 FAT32

Revision history for this message
fidel (direccion-publica) said :
#11

I found the solution:

1. I manually mounted the usb key (via terminal)
2. I right-clicked on the icon on the desktop and went to the drive tab.
3. There I found the wrong options I had previously written.
4. I manually unmounted the usb key (via terminal)
5. I unplugged and replugged the usb key and it automounted perfectly, as before.