Re: [tlug] Trouble with external USB hard disk: /root/sdb5; copy and paste; corrected commands

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

David Bernat writes:

 > What would happen if I create a folder named _USB-external-320GB_ and 
 > use that folder as the mount point?

You'd find it inconvenient if you ever need to type it, but it would
work.  The stuff in the ls listing should look familiar to you:

 > david@example.com:~$ ls -la ~david/foomnt
 > total 980
 > drwxr-xr-x 30 root  root  32768 1970-01-01 09:00 .
 > drwxr-xr-x 77 david david 20480 2008-10-21 19:25 ..
 > drwxr-xr-x  4 root  root  32768 2005-03-21 20:10 Anachronox
 > drwxr-xr-x  7 root  root  32768 2007-07-10 09:50 archived files
 > drwxr-xr-x  3 root  root  32768 2007-07-10 10:02 Bethesda Softworks

These don't look like user names, so don't mount this on /home, and I
see no dot files, so don't mount it on /home/david.

 > -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  root    716 2008-10-20 13:06 fstab

This is an /etc/fstab that got written while this partition was
mounted on /etc.  I wonder what's in it?

 > -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  root      0 2008-10-07 17:10 mtab

Similar.  But nothing's in it. :-)

The rest of that stuff looks like software, mostly, with some
suspiciously Windows-y directories (like Recycled).  I bet you used it
as a Windows D: drive and installed stuff there?  Doesn't matter.

Just mount it anywhere convenient.  I would suggest something like
home/david/games or /home/david/software or similar.  Or whatever name
helps you remember what's in there, and conversely will immediately
come to mind when you're looking for any of that stuff.

If it were shared stuff on a multiuser machine, maybe /opt/software or
/usr/local/software would be more appropriate.