[Hardy] Links to ntfs folders do not work properly on reboot

[Aaron Whitehouse]

Binary package hint: nautilus

I am using Ubuntu Hardy 8.04. I have a 70GB windows/ntfs partition on this machine.

I click Places > 70 GB Volume. The drive icon appears on the desktop. I navigate to the folder that I want a link to. I middle-click drag to the desktop and create a link. For that session, the link to the folder works as expected.

When I reboot, the 70 GB icon is no longer on my desktop and the icon for the link is different. If I click the link, I get an error that the link doesn't work and do I want to move it to the trash. Another window appears over the top of this saying that it is trying to open and click cancel to cancel. (One cannot actually click this window until the first error is clicked (even though it is underneath.)

From this point, clicking Places > 70 GB volume gives an error:
Cannot mount volume
Unable to mount the volume.
mount_point cannot contain the following
characters: newline, G_DIR_SEPARATOR (usually /)

[Vancouverite (sethgilchrist)]

Hi Aaron,
If you set up the drive in your fstab to be auto mounted at boot time it should work. There is lots of info in the ubuntu forums about fstab ("file system table"), but the simple edit is:

1) find out the device name using "mount". It should be something like /dev/sda#.
2) unmount the drive: sudo umount /dev/sda#
3) make a directory to mount the drive: sudo mkdir /media/70G_drive (or /media/win, or whatever)
4) back up your fstab file: sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab_backup
5) edit your fstab file: gksudo gedit /etc/fstab
6) add the text:

   # Below added by Aaron to mount windows partition
   /dev/sda# /media/70G_Drive ntfs user,auto,umask=000,sync 0 0

When you start up, the drive should always mount to the same place and appear on the desktop. If not, follow mahiyar's directions here: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-449342.html and check your configuration.

Cheers

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

thank you for your bug report, that's not a bug though, nautilus mounts are available only for the session so after a reboot the location is not available that's why the icon doesn't work, there is some other bugs open about the behaviour not being optimal so I'm closing this one

[My_full_name (vive-la-monique)]

Obviously Sebastien Bacher is somebody important who can decide this is not a bug, and I am just a lowly user who has no authoritity.

However, I absolutely feel this is a bug and a serious one. If Ubuntu wants to make it easy for people to move from Windows to Ubuntu, they need to make it easy for users to access their files from the Windows partition. That means it should be easily to create links to their Windows desktop and their "My Documents" folder, etc.

Now, for Mr. Bacher, who probably thinks typing "sudo umount /dev/sda#" is easy and obvious, for the average NEW USER this is NOT obvious and it requires a lot of research to simply find out why creating a link doesn't work.

A good user interface should first do what the user expects it to do, without expecting him to do a "sudo umount /dev/sda#" because 95% of users will never figure that out.

This absolutely is a bug, if you define a bug as functionality that doesn't perform as expected.

I'm sure Mr. Bacher feels that everyone should know "sudo umount /dev/sda#" etc. etc. and that is how this issue should be solved. It is that kind of thinking that keeps Linux from being used by the mainstream. The mainstream just wants to create a link that works, they don't want to screw around with a command line interface.

Rather than trying to get people to type "sudo umount /dev/sda#" Ubuntu should be trying to accomodate beginners. Creating a link is a very, very basic function that shouldn't require a command line.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

whoever doesn't want to use a real name and subscribe to bug after commenting to read replies:

- nobody said you have to use sudo and you actually don't since gnome-mount as for a password when required
- you can access those mounts in the computer place in nautilus
- you can add bookmark to those directories