Mount NTFS-partition under Ubuntu

23 09 2009

Open up Terminal (Applications – Accessories – Terminal) and type the following:
sudo fdisk -l

you will be asked for the root password (password you chose at setup) and will be presented with a list that looks similar to this:

Disk /dev/sdb: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0x000e4abf
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb2 * 1 38913 312568641 7 HPFS/NTFS

this tells us that the drive is 320GB and is located at /dev/sdb2, you will need to remember the location of the drive.
In terminal again, type
sudo gedit /etc/fstab

You will be presented with your fstab file, which basically tells Ubuntu where to mount the drives listed.
At the bottom of the fstab file paste the following:
/dev/sdb2 /media/wimpy ntfs-3g defaults 0 0

You will need to adjust 2 things: the name /dev/sdb2 to the drive that is specific to your computer, and the name /media/wimpy. The name I chose “wimpy” the directory where the drive will be mounted. Save the file
to create the mount point, open Terminal and type:
sudo mkdir /media/wimpy

where “wimpy” matches the name you used in the fstab file.
To test that it works, type:
sudo mount -a

This will mount all the drives listed in the fstab file.

23 09 2009: Mihir Patel (18:53:59) :

Hello,

It’s very nice post but i want to tell you that Ubuntu is automatically mount NTFS partition.

You mentioned steps for mounting permanently on some folder so your time should be “Mount NTFS on Ubuntu to Some Particular folder” instead of “Mount NTFS-partition under Ubuntu” but you got a pretty good blog.

It’s my suggestion only. Keep sharing.

Regards,
Mihir
ask4itsolutions.com

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24 09 2009: rforge (11:13:23) :

Thanks for this point Mihir.

Yes it is true, that this is a tutorial which I found on the Ubuntu forums a long time ago; I just cooked it down to my purpose that time (think it was Gutsy).

The thing is that it is still usefull today (Jaunty), when having a partition mounted to a custom folder on startup.

I was getting this old tutorial out of the trunk yesterday, when I wanted to mount a big partition on my HD to /home/reinhard/media on startup – instead of /media/some_name_which_gnome_chooses.

Maybe this is also possible without this how2, but anyway that’s the way I did it.

What I really wanted to do, but failed initially (I know it is possible) is to mount a folder /Pictures on this partition to /home/reinhard/Pictures since my system partition gets packes…

Best regards,
Reinhard

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Rforge