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I'm trying to install Arch on a Virtualbox VM. I'm following along this guide, and this video. Not sure if relevant, but the VDI file is on an external hard drive.

I've created 3 partitions as per the video:

  1. /dev/sda1 linux-swap (~5 GB)
  2. /dev/sda2 ext4 (~10 GB)
  3. /dev/sda3 ext4 (~35 GB)

So early on, the video suggests running a few commands:

# mkdir /mnt/home
# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
# mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/home

But the last command gives me the following error:

mount: mount point /mnt/home does not exist
  • First question: The Arch guide doesn't say I should partition my disk as the video does. Should I just forego the fancy partition scheme?
  • Second question: If I should go with this partition scheme, how can I get around this error, and why is it happening in the first place?
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  • Now that I think about it, this might not be the best forum. Is this better suited for superuser or unix SE sites?
    – xyhhx
    Jan 22, 2016 at 17:42

2 Answers 2

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This is because you created /mnt/home before mounting something to /mnt. When you did that, the "home" directory is hidden by the newly mounted /mnt filesystem.

You need to: (after unmounting everything above)

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/home
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  • Nice. Love easy solutions. I'll give it a crack this afternoon
    – xyhhx
    Jan 22, 2016 at 17:51
  • Worked like a charm!
    – xyhhx
    Jan 22, 2016 at 18:32
  • Cool, glad to hear it!
    – Tim S.
    Jan 22, 2016 at 18:33
  • Out of curiosity, how come the guy in this video has no problems with doing things in the order I described in my original question?
    – xyhhx
    Jan 22, 2016 at 22:15
  • If /mnt/home already existed on the mounted filesystem, he wouldn't have had a problem. Chances are he already made it in preparation for the video.
    – Tim S.
    Jan 22, 2016 at 22:19
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First you create a directory /mnt/home

# mkdir /mnt/home

But then you mount /dev/sda2 to mount, which shadows over /mnt/

# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt

Then try and map to a folder that does not exist as you never made the folder on sda2 which you mapped to /mnt/

# mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/home

Is this intended?

This would work

# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
# mkdir /mnt/home
# mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/home

because you mount sda2 to /mnt/ then create the folder on sda2 (Which is now /mnt/) then map /dev/sda3 to this folder (Which exists on /dev/sda2)

The real question is why do you want to map /dev/sda2 to /mnt/? /mnt/ is for mount points, sure you could store then on a different physical drive but it won;t really save space or anything.

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  • This is how you install Arch, because you chroot to /mnt during the installation.
    – Tim S.
    Jan 22, 2016 at 17:55
  • Ahh understood. I don't have any experience with arch so I'm use to using /mnt/chroot for that type of stuff. Good enough! Thanks for the information, appreciate it.
    – Nick Young
    Jan 22, 2016 at 17:57

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