Mounting external hard disk for all users at start up in ubuntu 14.04
Solution 1
To mount a partition at startup for all users, we need an entry in the fstab
file. What is happening presently is, the HDD is getting mounted for the user who logs in which gives access permissions to only that user. By adding an entry in the fstab, the partition will be mounted by root with access to all users. this r/w access can be controlled later on.
sudo blkid
lists down all partitions available on your system. Note down the UUID
of the NTFS partition that you want to mount at boot. In your case, it seems 00148BDE148BD4D6
now create a folder, for example sudo mkdir /media/ExtHDD01
. This is the folder where your external HDD partition will be mounted at. This folder will be owned by root. To give other users permission to r/w into this folder we need to give the proper permissions. so chmod -R 777 /media/ExtHDD01
would be good enough. Now you need to edit your fstab file. to do so, type the following command.
sudo nano /etc/fstab
go to the bottom of the file and add the following line there.
UUID=00148BDE148BD4D6 /media/ExtHDD01/ ntfs-3g auto,user,rw 0 0
Reboot system and you should be good to go. You can follow the same procedure for any number of HDDs.
Solution 2
GUI method
plug in the drive.
Go to
Disks
in the desktop finder (orsudo gnome-disks
on a terminal)Select the correct disk in the left column.
Click the gear icon
Select
edit mount options
Turn
off
Check both
mount at startup
andshow user interface
Thats it!
Solution 3
I recently was in the same situation and I figured out a solution.
I have 2 users, ADMIN and DESKTOP USER for which I wanted to mount same drive labeled STORAGE upon their respective logins, so:
In the file /etc/fstab
I had to add following entry:
LABEL=STORAGE /media/$USER/STORAGE auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show 0 0
The notable thing is the use of the environment variable $USER
.
This is for Ubuntu 16.04 where new drive is mounted under /media/<username>/<drive-label>
You may also use UUID instead of <drive-label>
.
Bhaskar Chennuri
Updated on September 18, 2022Comments
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Bhaskar Chennuri over 1 year
Hi I am new to Ubuntu and recently installed 14.04 LTS. I am having issues with mounting external hard drives for all users at start up. For example, after start up if I login as a user A, only user A can access the external media, and others can't access these external media. Could someone please help me fix this issue.
Outputs to following commands
sudo blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="98715d8d-bf13-48f5-882e-36270c539c94" TYPE="ext4" /dev/sda2: UUID="qOUDEc-qHDq-y9NL-OWCF-fO04-vnPI-8UNrtV" TYPE="LVM2_member" /dev/sdb1: UUID="6ulNAl-1Hky-orpE-ntL2-Brgu-Qen1-BYqCIh" TYPE="LVM2_member" /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root: UUID="a7e84558-d5d3-43f3-8788-a483dde96fd8" TYPE="ext4" /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_home: UUID="fb65cc75-ab1a-44a4-8f98-b1767d03f15a" TYPE="ext4" /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_swap: UUID="69e3381b-a2b5-4866-81b6-bd368c9157d5" TYPE="swap" /dev/sdc1: LABEL="ExtHDD04" UUID="0DFFA1CB15212E12" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sdd1: LABEL="ExtHDD03" UUID="485AA7713243CEFB" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sde1: UUID="485ef4bd-0093-42c5-a3e5-0090e68e93c1" TYPE="ext4" /dev/sr1: LABEL="WD SmartWare" TYPE="udf" /dev/sdg1: LABEL="ExtHDD01" UUID="00148BDE148BD4D6" TYPE="ntfs"
sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250000000000 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30394 cylinders, total 488281250 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xc648a420 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 2048 1026047 512000 83 Linux /dev/sda2 1026048 488280063 243627008 8e Linux LVM Disk /dev/sdb: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x000617c8 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 2048 3907028991 1953513472 8e Linux LVM Disk /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root: 53.7 GB, 53687091200 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 6527 cylinders, total 104857600 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root doesn't contain a valid partition table Disk /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_home: 2168.7 GB, 2168656494592 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 263657 cylinders, total 4235657216 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_home doesn't contain a valid partition table Disk /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_swap: 27.5 GB, 27481079808 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3341 cylinders, total 53673984 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_swap doesn't contain a valid partition table WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdc'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted. Disk /dev/sdc: 3000.6 GB, 3000558944256 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 364797 cylinders, total 5860466688 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdc1 1 4294967295 2147483647+ ee GPT Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary. WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdd'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted. Disk /dev/sdd: 3000.6 GB, 3000558944256 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 364797 cylinders, total 5860466688 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdd1 1 4294967295 2147483647+ ee GPT Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary. WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sde'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted. Disk /dev/sde: 3000.6 GB, 3000558944256 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 364797 cylinders, total 5860466688 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sde1 1 4294967295 2147483647+ ee GPT Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary. Disk /dev/sdg: 1999.7 GB, 1999696297984 bytes 228 heads, 56 sectors/track, 305894 cylinders, total 3905656832 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xe534f55f Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdg1 2048 3905656831 1952827392 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a # device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices # that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5). # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1 /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_home /home ext4 defaults 0 2 /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_swap none swap sw 0 0
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Bhaskar Chennuri over 9 yearsHi astrob0t, thanks it helped. But why is this new /media/<username> thing in latest release of ubuntu? Does if confer any advantages?
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astrob0t over 9 yearsThat's not username. That can be any random folder. Generally when you manually Mount a device, it gets mounted at
/media/<UUID>
this uuid is a typically long string. So to keep everything consistent, i gave an example to Mount it at/media/<some_random_folder_name>
. You can create any folder, anywhere. -
Bhaskar Chennuri over 9 yearsI am sorry, I may not be clear earlier. In the latest release of ubunutu the media is being mounted in a different folder for each user. For example /media/bhaskar/ExtHDD01 instead of /media/ExtHDD01 (where ExtHDD01 is the external harddrive). Hope I could explain clearly this time.
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Laice over 7 yearsThis would be an answer for desktop users, however this is likely not applicable for server users.
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WhosUrDaddy over 7 yearsOk, find the correct information to update the fstab file manually. Good day.
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Walid Bousseta about 3 yearsthe command that worked for me in ubuntu 20 is as follow
/dev/disk/by-uuid/5fe8185a-af16-436d-8085-4f9865cdbd0c /mnt/data auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show 0 0
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matty over 2 yearsThe original post says nothing about servers. This was perfect for me. Thanks.