I run Ubuntu from a USB (run the whole OS from it, persistent) and want to access files such as my pictures or documents from Windows 7, is it possible to do so? How?
2 Answers
You need to mount the partition that contains you files. Run this on Terminal:
sudo fdisk -l
It should be something like
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 206847 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 206848 209717247 104755200 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
To locate which partition has your files, probably the one Windows 7 is installed in, then perform the following command:
sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdaX /~/choose-a-folder-name-you-want
Where X is the number of the partition you want to mount, like /dev/sda1 or /dev/sda2.
It should mount the disk with full access, so you can copy and paste files to those folders. More about mount.
Remember, it will mount your whole Windows 7 partition to a folder, so be carefull not to delete anything important.
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This didn't work for me. It said the drive was already mounted, but there was no sign of it (or where it was mounted) in find or df.– ZimMar 31, 2021 at 20:15
Scenario B
A live boot with access to a Windows drive on a another machine.
Fast Solution
You'll need your live-boot user UID
and GID
~ $ id
Create a local mount directory
~ $ mkdir ~/<mount-dir>
'mount'
the windows drive.
~ $ sudo mount -t cifs -o user=<win-user-acct>,rw,uid=<uid-number>,gid=<gid-number> //<IP-of-Win-Machine>/C$ ~/<mount-dir>
Example
~ $ sudo mount -t cifs -o user=winUserName,rw,uid=999,gid=999 //192.168.1.77/C$ ~/winbox01
NOTE
'cifs-utils'
should be installed by default, but to check,
~ $ sudo apt search cifs-utils
[ If not installed, use the following ]
sudo apt update && sudo install cifs-utils
Other Difficulties
The 'mount -o[ptions]'
list must NOT contain white space.
The following options list will fail,
"-o user=winUserName[SPACE],rw,uid= ... "
Wired NIC Connection Issues
~ $ ip link
OR ip address
With NIC device name,
~ $ sudo ip link set <NIC-dev-name> up
Wireless NIC Connection Issues
~ $ nmcli
[ to get device name of wireless NIC ]
~ $ nmcli d wifi list
[ to get SSID to connect to ]
~ $ nmcli d wifi connect <WiFiSSID> password <WiFiPassword> iface <WifiInterface>
[ to connect NIC to Wireless network ]
Misc
Certain punctuation within "<WiFiPassword>
" must be escaped,
Yes: \!
,\$
,\&
No: @
, #
To mount the Windows C$
share [ which is the entire drive ], your <win-User-Acct>
will need to belong to the Windows machine's local 'Administrators'
group. If not, you'll need to share a folder on the Windows machine and use "<IP-of-Win-Machine>/<share-name>"
in the 'mount' command.