[PLUG] What are fstab and mtab?

[John Jordan]

Because I think they are somehow connected to the fact that my 
iPod will not mount, although it did fine last time I tried, a couple 
months ago. Previously it auto-mounted. All I had to be careful of 
was to issue the command "umount /media/iPod" before 
disconnecting it.

Now, I plug it in, its display goes to "DO NOT DISCONNECT," but 
gtkpod can't see it. "Mount" does not list it. "Umount /media/iPod" 
says it is not mounted. And /mount/media/iPod gives me "mount: 
special device /dev/sda2 does not exist."

Does the last error message mean it is not listed in fstab or mtab? 
If so, how does it get in there, because I know I have never 
manually changed anything in those files. I only know of it from 
seeing references to it.

One additional clue: Last time I plugged in the iPod was a couple 
months ago. Since then I've added a USB pocket hard disk, which 
was plugged in when I plugged in the iPod. I'm thinking that made 
Ubuntu Breezy think the iPod was sda2 instead of its normal 
status as sda1. I unplugged the pocket disk, but that didn't change 
the error messages with iPod. 

I don't dare disconnect the iPod as long as that warning message 
is on its screen, or its filesystem will become corrupted and I'll 
have to go find a Windows XP computer to restore it. 

This sucks.