Hard Drive mounting problem - SOLVED!

[revbish]

I have 2 laptops, both running identically configured Precise Puppy 5.4.2, one a Toshiba, the other a Compaq. I also use 2 identical external 2 TB USB-docked hard drives formatted as NTFS in RAID 1 array (mirroring each other.) I've had no problems at all using the hard drives with either laptop until recently, using the Compaq, suffered a power outage. Now when I try to mount the drives on the Compaq, which appear as usual on the desktop, I get this warning message in a red box:

"The ntfs-3g driver was unable to mount the NTFS
partition and returned this error message:
fuse: mountpoint is not empty
fuse: if you are sure this is safe, use the 'nonempty' mount option
So, the inbuilt kernel NTFS driver has been used
to mount the partition read-only."
_________________________________________________________

I checked the fstab file in both computers, and they are identical, the contents of which is:

none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts gid=2,mode=620 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,rw 0 0

_________________________________________________________

The drives still mount fine (read-write) on the Toshiba, but read only on the Compaq. Does anyone know anything I can do to remedy this situation, i.e. be able to mount read-write on the Compaq? Sincere thanks for any help! I've installed Puppy on both computers' internal hard drives, so they are both dual boot with Windows XP (which I never use anymore now that I can do whatever I want with the apps I have installed on Puppy, which I love.

[npierce]

It sounds like perhaps one or more files have been written to the directory used for the mount point when nothing was mounted. Have a look at that directory before trying to mount the drive. If you find stuff there, move it out. Then try mounting.

[revbish]

Sweet! A million thanks! What a simple fix ---- I feel like a real goofball now, but it sure is nice to have my drives back working as they should!

[revbish]

I'm not sure how to mark this original post "Solved" but please do or let me know how. Thanks again.

[npierce]

Good news. You're welcome.

You can edit the topic title by clicking the Edit button on your original post, updating the Subject line, and clicking Submit.

[flusch]

Thank you very much also, npierce. It worked for me, too. I had no idea how to approach this problem, but a search of the forum led me right to this thread.

[npierce]

flusch,

You're welcome.

It's always good to hear that an old post has helped someone else. Thanks for letting me know.