Hi

I am not sure that I have a full and complete understanding here.

I installed CentOS 5 in early April and then upgraded the kernel to 2.16.18-8.1.3.el5xen a few days ago. This is when I noticed that the two USB discs had improper and irregular names in my file system.

In installing CentOS 5 I noticed that I could label (not sure that is the correct word) these two USB devices which are generally permanently mounted. I liked this idea as it allowed me to have a better backup process as well as more natural path to my music digitization project.

With the kernel upgrade the pointings became erratic. This is almost certainly due to the level of system work I was attempting to do in bringing on-line lightscribe technology and video/DVD technology as well as maintaining my science/engineering computing base.

It was suggested that I review the man pages for fstab, mount and e2label. This I have done and I hope I understand. But firstly it is necessary to state that the file systems on these USB drives is VFAT and not ext2 or ext3. Why so, because I regularly need to carry, move, the records and the backup information to family windows machines. I guess that there are other methods that I should now consider and I am willing to do that if it is will generate a more stable system for myself.

What I find is as follows: The original fstab which correctly points to the file system

[root@currawong etc]# more fstab LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1 /dev/sdb1 /backup vfat defaults 0 0 LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2 LABEL=/data /data ext3 defaults 1 2 LABEL=/data21 /data2 ext3 defaults 1 2 devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0 tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0 LABEL=/home /home ext3 defaults 1 2 LABEL=/opt /opt ext3 defaults 1 2 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 /dev/sda1 /records vfat defaults 0 0 sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0 LABEL=/tmp1 /tmp ext3 defaults 1 2 LABEL=/usr/local /usr/local ext3 defaults 1 2 LABEL=SWAP-hda3 swap swap defaults 0 0 [root@currawong etc]# mount -a

If I change fstab to the following LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1 LABEL=Backup /backup vfat defaults 0 0 LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2 LABEL=/data /data ext3 defaults 1 2 LABEL=/data21 /data2 ext3 defaults 1 2 devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0 tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0 LABEL=/home /home ext3 defaults 1 2 LABEL=/opt /opt ext3 defaults 1 2 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 LABEL=Records /records vfat defaults 0 0 sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0 LABEL=/tmp1 /tmp ext3 defaults 1 2 LABEL=/usr/local /usr/local ext3 defaults 1 2 LABEL=SWAP-hda3 swap swap defaults 0 0

and then try to mount I get the following errors. [root@currawong etc]# mount -a mount: special device LABEL=Backup does not exist mount: special device LABEL=Records does not exist

Clearly it is the label that is not correct or being picked up. I have tried quite a few other combinations, lower case, with and without the / all of which give the same problem.

So is the problem due to the VFAT file systems, a miss understanding on my part, or something else. I would appreciate understanding the problem from others cheers Peter