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File System Mounting

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3 views6 pages

File System Mounting

Best notes

Uploaded by

bbhagyalaxmi300
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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File System Mounting

Unit-4
Mounting
● A file system must be mounted before it can be available to
processes on the system.
● Mounting is a process by which the OS makes files and directories
on a storage device(such as hard disk,CD-ROM, pen drive or
network share) available for users to access via the computer’s file
system.
● An opposite process of mounting is called unmounting, in which the
OS cuts off all user access to files and directories on the mount
point, writes the remaining queue of user data to the storage device,
refreshes file system metadata and then give up access to the
device; making the storage device safe for removal.
● The location within the file structure where the file system is to be
attached is known as mount point.
2
Mounting Procedure
The mount procedure is straightforward.
● First, the operating system is given the name of the device and the
mount point. Some operating systems require that a file system type
be provided, while others inspect the structures of the device and
determine the type of file system.
● Next, the operating system verifies that the device contains a valid file
system. It does so by asking the device driver to read the device
directory and verifying that the directory has the expected format.
● Finally, the operating system notes in its directory structure that a file
system is mounted at the specified mount point. This scheme enables
the operating system to traverse its directory structure, switching
among file systems, and even file systems of varying types, as
appropriate.
3
File System Mounting Example

4
File System Mounting in macOS
● In the macOS operating system whenever the system
encounters a disk for the first time (either at boot time or while
the system is running), the macOS operating system searches
for a file system on the device.
● If it finds one, it automatically mounts the file system under the
/Volumes directory, adding a folder icon labeled with the name
of the file system (as stored in the device directory).
● The user is then able to click on the icon and thus display the
newly mounted file system.

5
File System Mounting in Windows OS
● The Microsoft Windows family of operating systems maintains an
extended two-level directory structure, with devices and volumes
assigned drive letters.
● Each volume has a general graph directory structure associated with its
drive letter. The path to a specific file takes the form
drive-letter:∖path∖to∖file.
● Windows operating systems automatically discover all devices and mount
all located file systems at boot time. In some systems, like UNIX, the
mount commands are explicit.
● A system configuration file contains a list of devices and mount points for
automatic mounting at boot time, but other mounts may be executed
manually. 6

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