Mount a Drive or Partition

Linux

Mount a Drive or Partition

CDs, DVDs and USB Drives

If you put a CD or DVD in the drive, or connect a USB drive, when using some Linux distributions they are automatically mounted, so you can access them.

With others they are not, so to access them you must mount them manually.

Partitions and Hard Drives

If there are partitions on the hard drive, or other hard drives, not used by the operating system, they are not normally automatically mounted. To access them, you must mount them manually.

List Drives and Partitions

To list information about drives and partitions, open the Root Terminal and type:

fdisk -l

This also enables you to determine if a drive is connected properly and working. If it is not included in this list, it is not connected properly or not working.

Create Directory to Mount Drive or Partition

Before mounting a drive or partition, you must have a directory to mount it to.

A drive or partition can be mounted to any directory. For illustration purposes create a new directory called "2" in the "/mnt" directory.

Open the Root Terminal and type:

mkdir /mnt/2

Another option is to open the Root File Manager and make this directory.

Mount the Partition

The partition can be mounted using the Root Terminal, by typing:

mount /dev/(drive or partition) (directory)

Enter appropriate information. Here is one possible example.

mount /dev/sdd1 /mnt/2

Access the Drive or Partition

If you go to the directory where the drive or partition is mounted, you can access it.

With most Linux distributions, if you use the ordinary file manager, you will have read only access. To have read and write access, you need to use the Root File Manager.

Unmount

To unmount the drive or partition you can use either:

umount /dev/(drive or partition)

umount (directory)

Using the example above, it can be:

umount /dev/sdd1

umount /mnt/2

Drives and partitions are also unmounted when the computer is turned off.

Mount a Drive When Computer Starts

If you want a drive or partition to be mounted every time the computer starts, you can add the details to /etc/fstab.

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