mounting usb in recovery mode

[bountonw]

Installed ubuntu on children's computer a couple of years ago and let them play with the gui. Now there is a screen resolution issue and can't boot. Want to reinstall but need to copy some files first.

So esc at boot and chose the first recover mode.

Now I am trying to mount a usb drive.

It is not mounting automatically. It is a FAT32 drive.

Tried

mount -t fat32 /dev/sdb /mnt/usb

get

/mnt/usb does not exist

If this is a recovery mode problem, how do I disable X at boot OR

how do I mount this usb drive in ubuntu

I am running

Ubuntu 8.04.2 \n \1
2.67.24-23-rt

Also network is not working so can't apt-get... Will fix that after reinstalling from CD ubuntu 9.04

[nandemonai]

Installed ubuntu on children's computer a couple of years ago and let them play with the gui. Now there is a screen resolution issue and can't boot. Want to reinstall but need to copy some files first.

So esc at boot and chose the first recover mode.

Now I am trying to mount a usb drive.

It is not mounting automatically. It is a FAT32 drive.

Tried

mount -t fat32 /dev/sdb /mnt/usb

get

/mnt/usb does not exist

If this is a recovery mode problem, how do I disable X at boot OR

how do I mount this usb drive in ubuntu

I am running

Ubuntu 8.04.2 \n \1
2.67.24-23-rt

Also network is not working so can't apt-get... Will fix that after reinstalling from CD ubuntu 9.04

The mount point doesn't exist. Mount points in the gui are usually dynamilcally created when you insert a usb drive.

All you need to do is first create a mount point then you should be able to mount the usb drive as normal.

mkdir /mnt/usb

Then mount as normal

mount -t fat32 /dev/sdb /mnt/usb

[bountonw]

Thank you nandemonai,

I did as you suggested and got

unknown filesystem type 'fat32

Tried it with all caps and got a similar error message.

Got the gui and network working and was able to transfer files and reinstall. So the system is working properly.

I would like to know how to mount and unmount usb using just command line when logged into tty1.

So although my emergency is past, I want to follow through with this in the hopes of benefiting others who may find themselves in a similar jam.

[taurus]

Normally, you would mount it as /dev/sdb1, not /dev/sdb. Also, it's vfat for fat32, not fat32.

What's the output of this command?

sudo fdisk -l

[bountonw]

Disk /dev/sda: 82.3 GB, 82348277760 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 10011 cylinders
Units - cylinders of 16065 * 512 - 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0007cff1

Device Boot    Start    End    Blocks    Id    System 
/dev/sda1  *   1     124     995998+   83   Linux
/dev/sda2      1992    10011    64420650   5   Extended
/dev/sda3      125     1991     14996677+  83  Linux
/dev/sda5      1992    2987    8000338+   83   Linux
/dev/sda6     2988    3983    8000338+    83   Linux
/dev/sda7    3984    4605     4996183+    83   Linux
/dev/sda8    4606    6099     12000523+   83   Linux
/dev/sda9    6100    9886     30419046    83   Linux
/dev/sda10   9887   10011    1004031     82    Linux swap  / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk sdb:  2032  MB, 2032140288 bytes
25 heads, 24 sectors/trak, 6615 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 600 * 512 = 307200 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End  Blocks   Id   System
/dev/sdb1  14   6616    1980416   b W95 FAT32

[taurus]

mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb
df -h

[bountonw]

Resolved:

sudo mkdir /mnt/usb

This makes a directory to mount the usb drive to.

sudo fdisk -l

This tells where the usb is located.

sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb

This tells the computer to mount the usb (that has a fat32 file system) located at /dev/sdb1 to the /mnt/usb directory.

Hope this is helpful for someone.

Thanks nandemonai and taurus for your help.

[taurus]

Or

sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb -o umask=000

so you can write to it as a regular user.

[bountonw]

Accidentally double posted and don't know how to delete so I edited the second post to wish everyone a pleasant day.

[nandemonai]

Ah yeah my bad, should be vfat not fat32. It's been a while since I used fat.