Loading Dropbox on start-up when my Dropbox folder is on separate partition

Question

My Dropbox folder is on another partition on my harddrive and Dropbox loads on start up. But since the separate partition has't been opened yet, Dropbox complains that my Dropbox folder is missing. So Ihave to close Dropbox, make sure my separate partition is mounted, then load Dropbox again.

Is there a way to auto-mount my drive before Dropbox loads on startup?

Solution 1

You can edit your /etc/fstab file to add whichever partition you need. You can find the wiki here.

Solution 2

Yeah.

You would need to mount your partition when your system starts.

For detailed guide refer Automatically Mount Partitions in Ubuntu.

If your have external NTFS partition then ntfs-config will ease your task and let you mount all ntfs partitions easily. To install ntfs-config, open terminal and type;

sudo apt-get install ntfs-config

Solution 3

I edited the /etc/fstab file.

Step 1. List your partitions by UUID:

sudo blkid

Step 2. Edit /etc/fstab file.

To edit the file directly in terminal, run:

sudo nano -Bw /etc/fstab

Step 3. Insert an extra line in fstab; the line should look like:

UUID="01CE8D75DCC82F80"    /media/G-Drive    ntfs  rw,auto,user,fmask=0111,dmask=0000   0     0

You will have to replace 01CE8D75DCC82F80 with your UUID.

You will have to replace /media/G-Drive with the location where you want to mount.

You might want to change ntfs if your partition is a different type.

If you change ntfs than you might have to change options as well (rw,auto,user,fmask=0111,dmask=0000 gives anybody access to this NTFS partition).

Step 4. Restart and keep fingers crossed, if "Drobox Unlink-ed message" not shown than you have been successful.

Solution 4

Got this idea from @Thomas Kainrad's comment

You can delay the startup of Dropbox so the drive has time to mount. First you need to disable Dropbox's option to load at startup:

Then add your own startup entry for Dropbox but add the X-GNOME-Autostart-Delay parameter and set it to the number of seconds you'd like to delay.

Save this under ~/.config/autostart/sleepy-dropbox.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=dropbox start -i
Hidden=false
NoDisplay=false
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true
X-GNOME-Autostart-Delay=2
Name[en_US]=My Sleepy Dropbox
Name=My Sleepy Dropbox
Comment[en_US]=Custom command for starting dropbox due to drive not being mounted yet
Comment=Custom command for starting dropbox due to drive not being mounted yet

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Comments

[Braiam]

Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference.

[schmoopy]

I am using the most recent loki/elementary (as of this date) and this was the easiest way to get all of my 11 ntfs disks to be ready at boot, including the one that contains my dropbox. Thanks!!!

[timbram]

Is there any way to see how the drive is currently mounted so I can properly populate fstab with the same (rw,auto,user,fmask=0111,dmask=0000 options?

[timbram]

Looks like the findmnt command may work pretty well!

[kennyB]

This package doesn't exist for 20.04