How to Mount an External Hard Drive on Linux: Step-by-Step Guide

Well now, if ya got one of them external hard drives an’ yer usin’ a Linux system, don’t be too worried. It ain’t all that complicated, just gotta follow a few steps. I seen folks strugglin’ with this, but let me tell ya, it ain’t so bad once you get the hang of it.

So first thing’s first, when ya plug in yer external hard drive, the computer ain’t just gonna do it for ya. It won’t pop up like some fancy Windows thing. Nah, Linux makes ya work a bit for it, but that’s alright, it’s all part of the fun. Ya gotta mount that drive yourself. Now, don’t go panickin’, it’s simple enough if ya follow along with me.

Step 1: Plug in yer External Hard Drive

Well, I reckon that’s obvious, right? Just take yer external hard drive and plug it into one of the USB ports on yer computer. Might be on the side or the back, but ya know where it goes. Once it’s plugged in, Linux won’t automatically show it, so we gotta help it out a bit.

Step 2: Open the Terminal

Now, if ya ain’t too familiar with the terminal, don’t get scared. It looks like a black box with white text, but it’s really just a tool to talk to the computer directly. You’ll need it to mount the drive. To open it, just look for that little thing called “Terminal” in yer menu or press Ctrl+Alt+T. That’ll get ya to where you need to be.

Step 3: Find the Name of Yer Drive

Next up, we gotta figure out what name the computer gave yer external hard drive. Don’t worry, it’s not some big mystery. It’s usually something like /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, or somethin’ like that. Just type this command in the terminal:

lsblk

This command’ll list all the drives connected to yer machine. Look for the one that matches the size of yer external hard drive. It’ll be right there, probably at the bottom of the list. Now you know what the drive’s called!

Step 4: Make a Mount Point

Now, ya need a place to mount the drive. Think of it like putting yer external hard drive into a folder on the system. It don’t have no folder to go into, it’ll just sit there useless-like. To create a folder for it, run this command:

sudo mkdir /media/mydrive

Ya can change “mydrive” to whatever ya like. This just makes a folder in the /media directory. If ya don’t know what that is, don’t worry about it. Just use that command and yer good.

Step 5: Mount the Drive

Alright, now comes the fun part. This is where you tell Linux to mount yer external drive into that folder ya just made. Use this command:

sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/mydrive

Replace “/dev/sdb1” with the name of yer drive that we found in Step 3. If everything works right, you should now have access to yer external hard drive right from the folder you made! Go ahead and open up that folder and see if yer files are there. If they are, you done did it right!

Step 6: Unmount the Drive

Now, when you’re done with yer external drive and ready to unplug it, don’t just yank it out, that ain’t good for it. You need to unmount it properly. To do that, run this command:

sudo umount /media/mydrive

This will unmount the drive safely. After that, you can go ahead and unplug it without worryin’ about messin’ up yer files or the drive itself.

Step 7: (Optional) Set Up Auto-mounting

If ya don’t wanna keep doin’ all these steps every time ya plug in yer external hard drive, there’s a way to set it up so Linux mounts it automatically. It involves editing a file called fstab. I ain’t gonna go into all that right now, but if ya want, you can look it up online for a more advanced guide. But for most folks, the steps I told ya here will do just fine.

Conclusion

There ya go, that’s all there is to it! Mountin’ an external hard drive on Linux don’t have to be hard, just gotta know what yer doin’. If you follow these steps, you’ll have no problem gettin’ yer drive up and runnin’. And don’t forget, always unmount before ya unplug, or else ya might be in for some trouble. But if ya just follow these simple steps, you’ll be just fine. Good luck, and happy computin’!

Tags：[Linux, external hard drive, mount, mount external hard drive, Linux tips, terminal, Ubuntu, unmount, file system]