How To Auto-mount Your NTFS Partition In Ubuntu
If you are dualbooting Windows and Ubuntu on your computer, you will know that you can easily read and write to your NTFS partition from your Ubuntu desktop. One thing though, your Ubuntu does not automount the NTFS partition by default. Everytime you need to access the NTFS partition, you have to first go to your Nautilus and click on the NTFS drive (and enter your password) to mount it before you can access it.
A good way to workaround this is to make your Ubuntu automount your NTFS partition upon booting up. While this can be easily fixed by changing the fstab file, it involves hitting the terminal and edit the root file, which maybe a big turn off for newbies and it could possibly crash your system if it is not handled properly.
To fix this issue the simpler way, we can install the application PySDM and access the storage device manager with a simple to use and user-friendly interface.
PySDM is a Storage Device Manager that allows full customization of hard disk mountpoints without manually access to fstab. It also allows the creation of udev rules for dynamic configuration of storage devices
Installation
The package pysdm is found in the Ubuntu repository. You can easily install it via the Synaptic Package Manager (System -> Administration -> Synaptic package Manager). Alternatively, for those who prefer the apt-get way, here’s the command:
sudo apt-get install pysdm
Better still, click this link to install pysdm in your Ubuntu system.
Usage
Once installed, go to System -> Administration -> Storage Device Manager.
You will find your all your partitions listed on the left pane of the window.
The partitions are labelled in the sda1, sda2, sda3, etc format. To identify which entry is your NTFS partition, highlight each entry and check the Type field on the right pane. This will tell you the filesystem of that partition.
Once you have located your NTFS partition, click on the Assistant button.
Check the box The File system is mounted at boot time.
Uncheck the box Mount file system in read only mode.
Click OK to close the Assistant window, follow by Apply to save the changes. Restart your computer, your NTFS partition should automount by itself upon booting up.
Tags: automount, Linux, NTFS, partition, Ubuntu
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[Click to close]17 Responses
I use a different though easy approach.
I install ntfs-config and than launch it through the terminal
sudo ntfs-config
just a couple of check box and you choose the partition and the mount point. You can also activate authomatic mount of external ntfs devices
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Great article, I sure would like to see one that explains in the same detail how to mount Windows shared folders and shared printers from Ubuntu on a LAN. I just don’t get the hang of Samba — I think my problems are mostly with the Windows “security features”. The Windows server box is actually an old laptop running XP Home SP3.
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Walter – i totally agree. A tool for managing the detection, mount-at-boot-time, and permissions of shared network drives and printers would be fantastic. I am ->this<- close to moving back to XP (eeek) because of this one problem.
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great!!!i never try it before…i’m looking for the other solution but always failed…ok…i will do it at home…thanks…..
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i’m one of your readers. i subscribe your article by my email….
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Great… Great… Great… Great… It took two days to get my external HD to be mounted properly.. Thanks man
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when i uncheck ”Mount read-only” option and press ok then Assistan to see if the option is still unchecked it is NOT!!?? whats happening?? also when i typed other commands that i found on the terminal there was ” root only ” and “permission denied” while i have only 1 user account. could i possibly not have full access???!@#!@….
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Damien Reply:
April 28th, 2009 at 6:36 am
Don’t worry about the “Mount read only”, somehow I am still able to read/write to my NTFS partition.
When you use command lines to access your filesystem, you have to use “sudo” infront of the command.
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I tried using this setup but for some reason my windows nfts partition doesn’t show up in the sda list. I easily mount it manually at each start. Also, it sees my vfat partition for my external HD completely fine.
Using windows vista on the dual boot. Any sharing options i need to check on the windows side to get to work?
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I don’t trust this software, my windows ntfs partition is at sda1, look at this screenshot, I have highlighted sda1 to be configured in the left-hand panel, whilst in the right hand panel all the info is for sdb1 which is a completely different partition and on a different drive.
screenshot:
http://img410.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshotniu.png
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Damien Reply:
May 16th, 2009 at 6:03 am
That’s strange. I didn’t encounter this problem before. Is the sdb1 an external drive?
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August 10th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Mine did the exact same thing, and it wasn’t an external drive, but the main ntfs partition. Will I have troubles after having manually changed it to sda1?
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sdb1 is a seagate free agent external USB drive, the software does work but not until I had removed the seagate.
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Thanks Alot
it’s great :)
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Just put a line in fstab
“sudo nano /etc/fstab”
“/dev/sda2 /mnt/windoze fuse.ntfs locale=en_US.utf8 0 0″
and your done. No messy GUI.
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“Everytime you need to access the NTFS partition, you have to first go to your Nautilus and click on the NTFS drive (and enter your password) to mount it before you can access it.
I am a bit confused here. I don’t have to do that. I just click on the partition I want and it pops open.
I am using Jaunty 9.04. Am I missing something here?
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Damien Reply:
August 12th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
What I mean is, Ubuntu does not automount your NTFS partition by default. You need to click on the partition to mount it
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