how to format my hard drive to ntfs in ubuntu

#How to format my hard drive to ntfs in ubuntu how to#
#How to format my hard drive to ntfs in ubuntu install#
#How to format my hard drive to ntfs in ubuntu windows#

Now we need to do some pretty tricky stuff to ensure that we catch the unique ID of the NTFS drive and print out a text line you can add to fstab. Once you have the ntfs-3g package installed, the steps are the same for both Linux distributions. Then run the respective command to get ntfs-3g package installed. For both Linux distributions you have to open a terminal window. Now that we have gotten a quick overview of the fstab file, we can move on to getting started at installing packages. Other values define the order in which to fsck ordering 1-X

fsck order: Here is where we define if the drive should be checked on boot/mount.

A huge list of options per filesystem type exist and can be found here: and here for ntfs-3g

options: This is where we define extra or specific options we need to mount the drive to our needs.

Examples of types of filesystem are ext4, xfs, hfs and ntfs-3g. If this is not the correct type then you cannot mount the drive.

fs type: This field defines what type of filesystem Linux will try to mount the drive with.

(Don’t play with re-arranging where you mount your system drives as it will break the system) So /, /var, /usr or even /media/ntfs if you want your drive mounted there.

mountpoint: This field defines where the device gets mounted.

It can be used as a direct reference to the device file, or in the case of using UUID, by entering UUID= This can be /dev/sda1 or as in the example /dev/mapper/fedora-root.

device: device is the reference to actual device the will be mounted.

The fields have the following meaning and impact on the filesystem mounting: Below we have two example lines from an fstab file: To under stand it better we will put it into a form and explain each field in the file. Below is an example of how the fstab file can look like. It can be both internal drives/partitions as well as USB drives and even network shares. It contains the information of what filesystems need to be read and mounted (connected) to your linux server during boot. It’s a text file placed in /etc named fstab ( /etc/fstab).

#How to format my hard drive to ntfs in ubuntu how to#

We will go through the package installation on both Fedora and Ubuntu, and also show you how to configure your fstab file for automounting of that specific drive.įirst off we’ll go through what the fstab file is and what it does. Installing the required packages and setting up fstab So, to get around this we need to tell Linux where to mount that drive and how. On Linux this is usually the case when using USB drives the automounter daemon kicks off a mount of the drive when you connect it via USB, but it does this as your local user and with local user permissions. Getting back to the fun stuff: So, assuming you’ve already attached your NTFS drive to your Linux machine, chances are that it’s already automounted and you have probably even been able to see data on it from your local user. In this guide we’ll cover Fedora/Ubuntu and specifically the ntfs-3g package that allows Linux to mount NTFS drives and have them actually usable.īefore we dive into drives, devices, fstab, ntfs-3g, UUIDs (and assuming you don’t know how to control permissions or have only a vague idea of how to use them), it’s recommended that you read the Linux Permissions Guide.

So, now you decided you wanted to try and use that drive for Plex Media Server on your new shiny Linux install.

#How to format my hard drive to ntfs in ubuntu windows#

Second, you have a USB externally mountable drive that you were using on you Windows PC.

#How to format my hard drive to ntfs in ubuntu install#

First, you have internal NTFS drives/partitions from a Windows install or an old Windows drive that you weren’t using any more. When working with NTFS formatted devices in Linux, we most often come across two types. This guide shows one of the ways to add NTFS drives to your Fedora/CentOS/Ubuntu Linux distribution.

Mounting NTFS drives on Linux and why the hell its so hard for Plex to read it.