*NEWBIE* HELP I need help to reconfigure FSTAB file. $ nano /etc/fstab *NEWBIE*

[JPresario]

Hi, I'm "Re-New" to Linux recently so I'm an "Old School Newbie" lol and I'm making a handful of CRITICAL mistakes including corrupting my fstab conf file !! I was able to reboot recovery from my live ISO and got the file configured enough to keep booting my system but my drive won't auto mount and keeps stalling with mount error "KEYS: continue waiting or press S for no mount or M for recovery". S boots with no mount and recovery needs me to obviously fix fstab. MINT 17.1 CINNAMON - REBECCA / Gnome.
Any help is appreciated !!! BTW this is my first post to Linux forums.

 

[Brickwizard]

Mint 17 reached the end of life in 2019 and is now unsupported, I suggest you consider saving all your files and folders and installing an up to date system

 

[Condobloke]

G'day jprekop, Welcome to Linux.org

Linux Mint 20.3 is an outstanding current system.

Available in Cinnamon, Mate or xfce.

 

[Alexzee]

Linux Mint 20.3 Cinnamon has been running stable for me on my custom build Asus Desktop for the last 5 months or so.
Zero complaints.

 

[Condobloke]

G'day JPresario, Welcome to Linux.org....somewhat belatedly !

I do not know if you ever solved this problem.....possibly by updating your OS..??

In any case, if you were to set up and use Timeshift, that would solve any problems like this.....and more

All you need is an external drive to save the snapshots to.......the rest is easy.

 

[forester]

I'd use Midnight Commander to edit as per illustrated in https://linuxhint.com/write-edit-etc-fstab/

 

[osprey]

JPresario wrote:

my drive won't auto mount

That might be because of the "noauto" option in the fstab.

 

[Alexzee]

JPresario wrote:

That might be because of the "noauto" option in the fstab.

Would it be safe to uncomment the noauto in the /etc/fstab file?

 

[osprey]

Would it be safe to uncomment the noauto in the /etc/fstab file?

There are a few alternatives. Change "noauto" to "auto", replace all the options with "defaults", remove "noauto" altogether. None of these changes are irreversible, so experimentation is fine, if laborious. The fstab manpage has a few alternatives worth considering too. One needs to make sure one backs up, especially the versions that work.

 

[Condobloke]

One needs to make sure one backs up, especially the versions that work.

Amen to that !

 

[bob466]

The problem must have been by now.