Other Help Topics :: Frugal /home simlink to another partition

I am experimenting with my first frugal install and was trying to figure out how to place things in a /home dir without eating up a bunch of memory at restore. I think this will work for that but again, I don't know what the heck I am doing.

With a little forum searching and experimentation, I came up with this method. Thought I would share as it seems to work.

Q: How do I store all my misc files on a separate partition using a frugal install and access them from /home/dsl automagically?

A: I installed Frugal on /hda1, mounted /hda5 and created a folder called /MyDocuments. After that, I opened the /opt/bootlocal.sh file and added:

Code Sample

sudo mount /dev/hda5
ln -s /mnt/hda5/MyDocuments /home/dsl

Now when I reboot, I have a symlink to /mnt/hda5/MyDocuments in my /home/dsl directory.

If there is a better way, I am open to suggestions!

Thanks

Chris

Your approach will work fine if your hda5 parititon is a Linux (EXT2/3, reiser etc) partition.

If it is a FAT/FAT32 partition, then some information will be lost in translation.

A solution is to make a loopfile on your FAT/FAT32 partition, format the file as a virtual EXT2 hard drive and then mount it. Then link it to /home/dsl like you just did with hda5.

hmmm didn't know that. Once again you are a wealth of info, CB.

I'll have to read up on your suggestion. It's currently over my head.

Take care

Chris

Quote (cbagger01 @ Dec. 06 2004,12:50)

A solution is to make a loopfile on your FAT/FAT32 partition, format the file as a virtual EXT2 hard drive and then mount it. Then link it to /home/dsl like you just did with hda5.

I knew about using loop to mount devices etc but this intrigues me...how is this done..I've read a little on the web but it doesnt seem to address this...everytime I read this board I am humbled...

OK,

Here is a quick explanation from memory. You might need to play around with things a little bit to gain a better understanding or fix my mistakes.

In Linux, storage devices are treated like files, so you can directly access the data on your hard drive by performing operations on /dev/hda for example.

The same is true in reverse. It is possible to create a file located somewhere (on an existing C:\ drive or a USB storage device) and then manipulate this file as if it were another hard drive.

First, you should mount your destination device. For example, here is a command for the first IDE hard drive partition that exists on a Windows98 system:

sudo su
mkdir /mnt/windrive
mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/windrive

You can now create or delete files on this drive. The contents are located in the /mnt/windrive directory (aka the "mountpoint").

Next, create an empty 100MB file on this drive using the dd command:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/windrive/my_fake_hd.img bs=100M count=1

Next, format the file as a virtual EXT2 filesystem:

mkfs -t ext2 /mnt/windrive/my_fake_hd.img

Now, using the "loop" device, we will mount this file as a virtual hard drive:

mkdir /mnt/fakehd
mount -t ext2 -o loop /mnt/windrive/my_fake_hd.img /mnt/fakehd

And you can now read or write files into your fake 100MB hard drive located at mountpoint "/mnt/fakehd". When you reboot into windows, you will see a 100MB file named "my_fake_hd.img" that is sitting in your C:\ directory.

If you need to unmount the virtual hard drive, just type:

umount /mnt/fakehd

Now in clivesay's case, he would also need to create a symlink that points the "/home/dsl/" directory location over to the "/mnt/fakehd" mountpoint.

Hopefully, I didn't forget anything and this will be of help to you. At least it should help you understand the concepts at work here.

Good Luck.

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