Mounting multiple USB Hard Drives

[Jim Cornette]

Robert Paxton wrote:

> I am currently upgrading from FC1 to FC3. I have ten external USB hard 
> drives attached. I need to be sure that when these drives are attached 
> that they can be uniquely identified so that they get mounted to the 
> same mount points each time. I was using devlabel in FC1 to accomplish 
> this, but FC3 no longer has devlabel. I tried udev but there is 
> nothing provided by udevinfo that will uniquely identify the drives. 
> Does any know of a way in FC3 that I can do what devlabel did for me 
> in FC1?
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In FC4 using USB hard drives, I use e2label and give the drives unique 
labels. The drives are then mounted according to the labels with ICONs 
on the desktop. However, they are mounted unpredictably under media.

Anyway, my idea is to use e2label on the drives, then use the label to 
specify a mountpoint for each drive.

Using my /etc/fstab as an example, you could use LABEL=/usb-dsk1 vs. 
using /dev/sda1 etc which could change unpredictably. If the drives are 
usually always attached, you should be fine. For USB drives, you have to 
set the last two numbers to 0 0 or you woud be dropped to a maintenence 
shell. don't use numbers.
/dev/sda1 is labeled as /usb-boot so I would use
LABEL=/usb-boot  /mnt/usb-boot ext3 defaults 0 0
if predictable mountpoints were needed. Labels on the ICONs are good 
enough for me.

Better ways may be available.

Jim

-- 
"Never face facts; if you do, you'll never get up in the morning."
-- Marlo Thomas