How to mount drives at boot time?

I'm new at this (but learning). I've installed Zorin 5.2 along side windows XP. All works well on both sides. Instead of duplicating a lot of my data from windows into the Zorin system I simply access the windows drive from Zorin. I must manually access this drive to mount it before I can use it. Not a problem except that I have to do it everytime after I boot up. Is there any way to automatically mount these drives at boot time? I've been reading the various documentation sites and yet to find anything on how to automatically mount these drives.

Any help or guidance would be appreciated (and here's hoping I didn't duplicate a previously entered item).

Paul

Hi Paul,

it isn't wise to mount your Windows partitions automatically as this can be a security risk, if you want to do it, use the configuration editor (gconf editor) to do it.

Press Alt + F2 and type "gconf-editor" and then check > apps > nautilus > preferences > "media_automount" and "media_automount_open" are enabled.

Regards Wolfman

Hi all
When I first installed Zorin last November I also wanted to automatically mount my Windows partitions mainly for my 60+G of music, I tried a few progs. from the package manager but none was satisfactory and one lost me access to Windows altogether which I couldn't fix and I had to reinstall Zorin again. I have all the settings that Wolfman recommends but I still have to use an app Disk Mounter added to the panel to mount on start-up. see pict. --------



Cheers Auldyin

Hi chaps,

further to Auldyin's comments:

Mount Drives automatically when your computer starts:

If you are using Ubuntu along with Windows in dual boot mode, then you may need to access NTFS partition frequently, so it’s not a bad idea to enable auto-mount of hard drive at system startup. PySDM is a simple ‘storage device manager’ application (based on PyGTK) that allows full customization of hard drive mount points. To install you can search for ‘pysdm’ in synaptic package manager or Type the following command(s) given below – at Terminal (CTRL+ALT+T) :

sudo apt-get install pysdm



Then open it from Applications -> System -> Storage Device Manager or simply search for it. Now you are ready to customize it – just select the drive or partitions and click on mount or any other options that you want to configure. Be careful, while tempering with your hard drive, a silly mistake might "p" you off.

See also (which is where I snagged this from!): http://blog.sudobits.com/2011/05/01/top ... ntu-11-04/

And if you want to use the Ubuntu tweak tool which also has a few tweaks: (make sure you download the correct version for your OS!!):

http://ubuntu-tweak.com/downloads/

Regards Wolfman

Hi Wolfman
Have installed PySDM looks the thing, but I'm not brave enough to apply any changes. My Zorin's cooking on gas at the moment don't want to bugger it. I notice in the mounting options that the default is to Mount file system in read only mode I uncheck it and press OK but when I look again it is checked again I want to be able to read and write to that drive so haven't applied any changes. see pict ----------



Anyone used this prog please advise?.

Cheers Auldyin

Hi Auldyin,

from what I can see; marking the section "allow a user to mount and unmount the file system" is what you need to do but that said, I don't use it either, maybe one of the others can help you further.

Did you click on assistant??, I ask because I don't know which page I am looking at!!.

I will take a look on the net and see if I can find an answer for you!!.

Regards Wolfman

Hi Auldyin,

I found this link which is pretty big and has a small section about the prog you are using and stacks of other info:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Autom ... Partitions

I hope it helps you further

Regards Wolfman

Hi Wolfman
Thanks for the info, yes that's a pict of the Assistant settings I've decided to give it a try after I've taken a backup image of the hard drive using Redo Backup and Recovery http://redobackup.org/ I'm curious about this prog as well. What are the odds that both dont work?. I'm off for a pint or two of Guinness first I'll post back when I'm done.

Nervously Aldyin

HI
Well I put Redo Backup on a USB stick and used to backup 250G hard drive to external hard drive and also backed up my Zorin partitions to a 32G USB stick. Redo was very easy to use all went well without any problems but I won't know until I have to do a restore hopefully never.
Then I used PySDM to mount my Windows D drive at boot. It works !! YIPPEE !!.

Hail to the Wolfman you can have 20 of my blue jewels.

Cheers Auldyin

What is all this about "Blue jewels", none have been delivered to my house, there was a crate of rifles that were meant for the very nice foreign gentleman living next door though!!.

Regards Wolfman

ALL,

Sorry I haven't posted sooner but ran into a little snag. Seems that as I was really starting to get the hang ( or a least comfortable) with my system, I had a drive that decided to go south, as in grave yard dead.... I was a little concerned having to rebuild, not ever having restored anything to my ZORIN system. But, thank goodness for restores and in particular backups. All my user data (and more) was backed up.

As to my original question, I checked the media_automounts as suggested by Wolfman and they where already enabled. Installed the storage managers as suggested by Auldyin and Wolfman and have had success. I also have the problem of it setting things to read only when you configure but by unchecking the option and applying the change all is well. I believe that it is a quirk of the program to default to read only during the configuration process, possibly as a safety feature. I managed to have the D: drive from my windows system mounted at boot (which is where all the data was I wanted to access (photos, music, documents etc).

Thanks all for the replies. It really helps to have some guidance as you are trying to learn.....