Mount can't find device in /etc/fstab

Solution 1:

Why this error?

You probably forgot to tell mount where to mount your drive.

Linux uses device files (/dev/sda, /dev/sdb1, etc.). And unlike Windows drives (C:, D:, etc.), you cannot access them directly (cd /dev/sdb1 will inevitably fail, telling you that it is not a directory but a file). If you want to open a drive with mount, you need to provide a mountpoint. A mountpoint is a directory wherein your USB drive will be opened and where you will be able to access your files.

Solution

Create a directory that you will use as the mountpoint for your drive:
```
mkdir /mnt/mydrive
```
Mount your drive with this command:
```
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/mydrive
```
Note: If you don't know your drive's device file, you can run sudo fdisk -l or lsblk to identify the partition you're looking for.
Now if you run ls /mnt/mydrive, it should list your drive's files.
When you're done, don't forget to unmount your USB drive before removing it from the computer:
```
umount /dev/sdb1
```

More information about this error

/etc/fstab is a file in which you can associate a partition with a mountpoint, allowing you to run mount <device> instead of mount <device> <mountpoint>. This is why you get this confusing error.

fstab has many more uses like mounting a partition at boot time, etc. More information about fstab on the Arch Linux wiki

Solution 2:

To know your device name use sudo fdisk. Your device can be recognized by its size, and probably looks like /dev/sdx, where x could be any letter from a to z. (Usually a is assigned to your first internal hard-drive)

To mount a usb drive sudo mount <Your Device Name> <Mount Position>, for example:

sudo mount /dev/sdb /mnt

To access what you have just mounted use the position where you have mounted. In the above example I have used /mnt, so I would type:

cd /mnt

Solution 3:

sudo mkdir /mnt/spider sudo mount -t ntfs-3g -o remove_hiberfile /dev/sda2 /mnt/spider

Remember to replace the drives name from /dev/sda2 to yours. You can find the name of your drives by using the command sudo fdisk -l .