Can't mount drives #2: Still can't mount exFAT

[Otto500206]

I posted this 2 weeks ago:

Can't mount any drive as read-write, external or internal

When I first installed EndeavourOS with KDE, I could mount my drives using Dolphin. A few days ago, I set up fstab using KDE Partition Manager. Everything looked like it’s fine, until I rebooted. The system weren’t able to, and still not able to, find the drives I added to fstab. It didn’t booted. I fixed it by using nofail, nobootwait I was now able to boot. But… None of my drives are mounted as read-write, they are always mounted as read-only External drives can’t be found on boot, inte…

It got locked a few days ago. Because I though this was the solution:

Can't mount any drive as read-write, external or internal

Exactly. I knew that for NTFS, in order for it to have the same “Linux-compatible permissions” for folders and files, you would need to define those in /etc/fstab/ (see here). For the purpose of replicating the issue on this thread, I did create an exfat test partition. Neither defaults, rw nor both together would give the user write permission to directory where it was mounted. Only after I did add uid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=022,fmask=133 to the line in /etc/fstab, I could get write permissi…

But when I opened back Windows and returned back to EndeavourOS after it… Well now I have a weird issue about exFAT ones.

Firstly, here’s my fstab:

#New Partition                               /mnt/internalB        /mnt/internalB   nofail,uid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=022,fmask=133                      0 0 #New Partition                               /mnt/internalB   /mnt/internalB   nofail,nobootwait                      0 0 # /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a device; this may
# be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices that works even if
# disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).#
# <file system>             <mount point>  <type>  <options>  <dump>  <pass>
UUID=E272-B3C7                              /boot/efi             vfat      noatime                                                0 2 
UUID=5b257c34-fd04-42b2-9ce0-dc3b0db8dc71   /                     btrfs     subvol=/@,noatime,compress=zstd                        0 0 
UUID=5b257c34-fd04-42b2-9ce0-dc3b0db8dc71   /home                 btrfs     subvol=/@home,noatime,compress=zstd                    0 0 
UUID=5b257c34-fd04-42b2-9ce0-dc3b0db8dc71   /var/cache            btrfs     subvol=/@cache,noatime,compress=zstd                   0 0 
UUID=5b257c34-fd04-42b2-9ce0-dc3b0db8dc71   /var/log              btrfs     subvol=/@log,noatime,compress=zstd                     0 0 
/dev/sda2                                   /mnt/internalA        ntfs-3g   nofail,defaultsuid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=022,fmask=133   0 0 
/dev/sdc1                                   /mnt/internalB        ntfs-3g   nofail,defaultsuid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=022,fmask=133   0 0 
/dev/sdb4                                   /mnt/windows          ntfs-3g   nofail,defaultsuid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=022,fmask=133   0 0 
UUID=F009-D277                              /mnt/externalA        exfat     nofail,defaultsuid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=022,fmask=133   0 0 
UUID=0CA6-383E                              /mnt/externalB        exfat     nofail,defaultsuid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=022,fmask=133   0 0 
UUID=5899-CCA7                              /mnt/externalgaming   exfat     nofail,defaultsuid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=022,fmask=133   0 0

If you read the discussion in my first post, you might figure out that this is what was recommended to me. But it doesn’t works for exFAT…

I tried everything that was reccomended and I did before posting my old post again. Nothing worked. What could be the reason of this? Because they worked when tried the info in the post I marked as “solution”.

Plus, one more little problem. something like sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/internalA works but KDE Partition Manager can’t mount NTFS drives as read-write. What could be the reason of this?

Also… I’m now definitely thinking on turning my Windows installation to a VM. Do anyone knows a solution which I can use my physical drives in that installation at VM?

[Kresimir]

It seems like you’re missing a comma between defaults and uid. In six places.

defaultsuid=1000

should be:

defaults,uid=1000

However, my long term advice would be to just stop using windoze.

– But I need… – No, you don’t.

[Otto500206]

@Kresimir

It seems like you’re missing a comma between defaults and uid. In six places.

defaultsuid=1000

should be:

defaults,uid=1000

Thank you for finding this mistake. Sadly, they still don’t get mounted read-write.

@Kresimir

However, my long term advice would be to just stop using windoze.

– But I need… – No, you don’t.

I would right now if I were able to use my preinstalled games on Linux… That is why I’m considering using VM.

[Kresimir]

Windoze VM probably isn’t the solution.

In the current year, most games work on Linux, with wine and proton. There are very few that don’t, and I’m sure you can survive without them.

[Otto500206]

Proton doesn’t works for me sadly. Only a few of the games I play outside of Steam worked with it.

[Kresimir]

See this:

Linux gaming [Guide]

Linux gaming   Why should YOU care?   You JUST want to game?   It must be very hard to ENJOY? Not hard at all to just enjoy! Buckle up and let’s spread some knowledge to make it easy for everyone! Let this be our gaming hub, please share: Update of tools Best practices Quality guides New hot tech Performance tips Table of contents: Introduction 1.1 Platforms 1.2 Common terms 1.3 Engines Requirements Steam 3.1 Setup 3.…

It’s quite a rabbit hole, but if it means you can free yourself from the shackles of windoze, it’s worth it.

[keybreak]

@Otto500206

Only a few of the games I play outside of Steam worked with it.

Perhaps he plays some online games with anti-cheat DRM…if so - this guide won’t help

[Kresimir]

But why would anyone want to do that? Life is so short to waste it on anti-cheat DRM.

[thefrog]

@Otto500206

I would right now if I were able to use my preinstalled games on Linux

The problem is that fat and ntfs are proprietary software to Microsoft and are not officially supported in Linux. While there are program designed to work with Microsoft formats there are not guarantee’s that it will always perform as expected.

[Otto500206]

Firstly, the issue with game is not related to exFAT or NTFS, I’m sure about this.

Secondly, let’s not change the topic. I have bigger issues than trying to play some games…

[Kresimir]

@Otto500206

I have bigger issues than trying to play some games…

Yeah, like using windoze, exfat and ntfs… I had those issues many years ago, then I switched to GNU/Linux.

[Otto500206]

I might be blind but, I don’t see anything about preinstalled games on there.

[Kresimir]

What do you mean “preinstalled”? Those that were installed by the vendor when you bought the computer?

[Otto500206]

Installed way before installing Linux, I mean.

Why this topic is getting changed to “How to play games which were installed on Windows on Linux?” I have no issues with NTFS at all. Please just help me about mounting if you can. I’m not asking anything about gaming right now(maybe in the future).

[Kresimir]

@Otto500206

Installed way before installing Linux, I mean.

If you get rid of windoze entirely, that will entail reinstalling those games on Linux, obviously, since they will be wiped out when you reformat the drives that currently hold windoze software on it.

@Otto500206

Why this topic is getting changed to “How to play games which were installed on Windows on Linux?”

Well, you mentioned the games first.

[Otto500206]

Only on the last paragraph, as I already said, I have bigger issues. Can we please don’t change the topic?

[thefrog]

first why are you using exFat on those drives what are the sizes of them?

[Otto500206]

@thefrog

what are the sizes of them?

UUID=F009-D277: 1.8 TiB
UUID=0CA6-383E: 931.48 GiB
UUID=5899-CCA7: 2,73 TiB

[thefrog]

well given half an answer i’ll give you this in return.

exFat is Microsoft and is not a suggested file system for Linux systems.

[Otto500206]

@thefrog

exFat is Microsoft and is not a suggested file system for Linux systems.

There are no system file(including Windows) on any external drive. I use them solely for archiving reasons. There are not even any game besides some iso games for emulators. As you can read from the first post, they worked fine in the past.