Member Avatar for dloj333

I can mount these raids I created in Suse 11 with:
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/dr1
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/dr2

but when I reboot the mount is gone. I have edited fstab with:
/dev/sda1 /mnt/dr1 mount defaults 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/dr2 mount defaults 0 0

and this doesn't work either.

Can anyone point out what I am doing wrong?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by dloj333

Dani AI

Generated

Good catch by — the issue was not the RAID itself but the fstab entry. The fourth field in /etc/fstab must name a valid filesystem type (ext3, ext4, xfs, etc.), not the word mount. That is why an interactive mount worked but the automatic boot-time mount did not.

A few practical follow-ups and hardening tips that apply to similar setups:

  • Prefer stable identifiers instead of raw device names. Use UUIDs so device reordering (sda -> sdb) does not break mounts. Example placeholder:

    UUID=01234567-89ab-cdef-0123-456789abcdef /mnt/dr1 ext3 defaults 0 0

    Find the UUIDs with:

    blkid /dev/sda1
ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/

  • If those partitions are part of a software RAID (mdadm) or are LVM members, mount the assembled device (for example the md device or the LVM LV), not the underlying physical partitions. Ensure mdadm is configured to auto-assemble at boot (generate /etc/mdadm.conf) and that the initrd knows about the array so the root/init scripts see it early:

    mdadm --detail --scan > /etc/mdadm.conf
mkinitrd

    Run those as root and regenerate the initramfs if needed.

  • Troubleshooting checklist if an fstab mount does not persist:

    • Verify the mount point exists (mkdir -p).
    • Test entries without reboot: mount -a and check for errors.
    • Inspect kernel and system logs: dmesg | tail -n 50 and tail -n 50 /var/log/messages.
    • Avoid running fsck on mounted filesystems; run fsck from rescue media if needed.

These steps prevent common pitfalls (wrong fstype, device renumbering, RAID not assembled early) and make mounts reliable across reboots.

Member Avatar for dloj333

I solved the problem.
The fstab entries:
/dev/sda1 /mnt/dr1 mount defaults 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/dr2 mount defaults 0 0

should be:
/dev/sda1 /mnt/dr1 ext3 defaults 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/dr2 ext3 defaults 0 0

which allowed for the raids to be mounted automatically on startup.

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