[CentOS] Difficulties with mounting the file system

Thu May 3 23:47:35 UTC 2007
Peter Morgan <petermorgan at grapevine.net.au>

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 at 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 at 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 at 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

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