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Update: Ubuntu 16.04+ includes a utility called disks; search it in dash. It's a GUI for mounting/handling disks. I'm using this tool for mounting or hiding drives.


In my current installation of Ubuntu 13.10 Unity, when I click on a drive in nautilus it gets mounted on /media/username/mountedDrive

I read that nautilus uses udisks to do that. Basically I want to auto mount my drive using udisks in start up using this method

The problem is, it mounts the drive in /media/mountedDrive, but I want it the way nautilus does in /media/username/mountedDrive

I want my NTFS Data drive to be auto mounted at /media/bsienn/

$ blkid

/dev/sda1: LABEL="System Reserved" UUID="8230744030743D6B" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda2: LABEL="Windows 7" UUID="60100EA5100E81F0" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda3: LABEL="Data" UUID="882C04092C03F14C" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda5: UUID="8768800f-59e1-41a2-9092-c0a8cb60dabf" TYPE="swap" 
/dev/sda6: LABEL="Ubuntu Drive" UUID="13ea474a-fb27-4c91-bae7-c45690f88954" TYPE="ext4" 
/dev/sda7: UUID="69c22e73-9f64-4b48-b854-7b121642cd5d" TYPE="ext4" 

$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19452 cylinders, total 312500000 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x8d528d52

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048      206847      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2          206848   117730069    58761611    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       158690072   312494116    76902022+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4       117731326   158689279    20478977    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       137263104   141260799     1998848   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6       141262848   158689279     8713216   83  Linux
/dev/sda7       117731328   137263103     9765888   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

$ cat /etc/fstab

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda7 during installation
UUID=69c22e73-9f64-4b48-b854-7b121642cd5d /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=8768800f-59e1-41a2-9092-c0a8cb60dabf none            swap    sw              0       0
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  • @Bsienn: If have to create an entry to /etc/fstab of the partition you want to mount automatically during boot. You can mount at any place you want. But you've to provide the output of these commands: sudo blkid, sudo fdisk -l and cat /etc/fstab. Edit your question and post the output. Oct 24, 2013 at 14:20
  • @Saurav Kumar thanks for reply, i'm very now to linux, just installed 3 days ago, so was scared to use fstab method. But it seems its the better way to do, then easy :) let me post back in 1 min :) Oct 24, 2013 at 14:24
  • This seems complicated - check here.
    – Hannu
    Aug 30, 2014 at 8:38
  • A very similar question (with many useful answers) is here.
    – aplaice
    Dec 7, 2018 at 19:34

3 Answers 3

25

The accepted answer does not really answer the question, namely how to mount and unmount hard drives using udisks like Nautilus does when clicking on a disk. The command you are looking for is udiskctl.

It's super easy, and also works with encrypted disks!

Mounting (encrypted disk):

Unlock the disk:

$ udisksctl unlock -b /dev/sdb1
Unlocked /dev/sdb1 as /dev/dm-3.

Take note of the location of the unlocked device (here /dev/dm-3). Then mount it automatically:

$ udisksctl mount -b /dev/dm-3 
Mounted /dev/dm-3 at /media/jmiserez/samsung1000.

Unmounting (encrypted disk):

$ udisksctl unmount -b /dev/dm-3
Unmounted /dev/dm-3.
$ udisksctl lock -b /dev/sdb1
Locked /dev/sdb1.

For unencrypted disks, just leave out the lock/unlock command in the beginning and end.

2
  • 2
    Thanks for your input, I was absolute beginner and needed the things done. Now I Simply use Disks tools to mount the drives. super easy GUI way. Your answer is really appreciated. Thanks Apr 17, 2016 at 20:10
  • @AbdulRehman thanks for that, the Disks GUI tool helps a lot and made locating my disk in the /dev folder much easier! Dec 24, 2023 at 22:00
13

As you can see except for /dev/sda5 as well as /dev/sda7 there is no entry of other partitions in /etc/fstab. You can manually mount your partitions by following these steps.

  • First of all unmount all partitions before creating an entry point to /etc/fstab. You can use command: sudo umount /dev/sdaX. Replace X with the partition number you want to unmount. Best way to unmount all is to use this command:

    sudo umount -a
    
  • Since you want to mount your partition at /media/user/mount-drive; you have to create the mount-point where you want to mount the partitions. Thus you've to create directories there in order to mount the partitions. Execute following in terminal to make the directories(mount point):

    sudo mkdir /media/user/sda1 /media/user/sda2 /media/user/sda3 /media/user/sda6
    

    Replace user with your ubuntu user's name. i,e bsienn I think.

  • Now you have to make changes in /etc/fstab in order to mount your all partitions. Execute following commands to do so:

    sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.orginal
    sudo nano /etc/fstab
    

    go to the last line and add these lines:

    UUID=8230744030743D6B /media/user/sda1    ntfs    errors=remount-ro 0       1
    UUID=60100EA5100E81F0 /media/user/sda2    ntfs    errors=remount-ro 0       1
    UUID=882C04092C03F14C /media/user/sda3    ntfs    errors=remount-ro 0       1
    UUID=13ea474a-fb27-4c91-bae7-c45690f88954 /media/user/sda6    ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
    

    again replace user in /media/user/sdaX with your ubuntu account name.

    A little explanation: UUID="contains the ID of your hard disk partitions, 1st is of /dev/sda1 and 2nd is of /dev/sda2 partitions and so on. sudo blkid command is very useful to get the partitions information like UUID, File-system type, partition entry etc.. So any one can use it to get their information. /media/user/sda1 is the mount entry of 1st partition and so on. Remember why I created 4 directories above. ntfs is the file system type of your 1st partition: /dev/sda1. It may be something else also like: ext3, ext4, ntfs, fat etc, you can get the info from sudo blkid command as I mentioned above. others will be same for all types of file-system, it tells that if any error occurs then remount the file system in read-only mode this link is a great tutorial.

    press Ctrl+x to save and exit. Press y when prompt to save.

  • Now mount all partitions by executing this command:

    sudo mount -a
    

    If you want to mount any specific partition you can use: sudo mount /dev/sda1 i,e to mount first partition and so on.

Now all your partitions will be mounted automatically when ever you start your system. You can check it by restart your system. :)

Reply if you need further assistance or if something goes wrong.

Edit

I forgot to saw the picture, actually you can create the folder name under /media/bseinn/ the name you want. For example /media/bseinn/data can be created instead of /media/bseinn/sda3; similarly /media/bseinn/ubuntudrive can be created instead of /media/bseinn/sda6. You've to give the same name in /etc/fstab file. Hope you can understand.

6
  • thanks for ur help, i'll try it in 30 mins. i was waiting and hoping for an email notification, but didn't got any, u replied within mins, my bad i didn't re checked sooner. Oct 24, 2013 at 16:53
  • Thanks a lot Saurav, it works as desired. can u explain a bit on what these commands do: sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.orginal sudo nano /etc/fstab. is there any editor way to do this? gedit something? Oct 25, 2013 at 1:13
  • I'm glad that you asked.. :) sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.original will make a copy of original /etc/fstab file so that if any error occurs we will always have a safe side :) sudo nano /etc/fstab means you're opening the file to edit in nano editor. nano is a simple and good editor, although you can use any other GUI editor like gedit. Hope you doubt is clear now! :) Oct 25, 2013 at 3:30
  • Don't know if I should spam comments with THANKS, but for now, I'll. Thanks @Saurav Kumar Oct 25, 2013 at 9:28
  • The last field (=fs_passno) in /etc/fstab should be 2 according to man fstab: This field is used by fsck(8) to determine the order in which filesystem checks are done at boot time. The root filesystem should be specified with a fs_passno of 1. Other filesystems should have a fs_passno of 2. ...
    – Dor
    Sep 30, 2016 at 8:35
3

Mount by label, without root password, with udisksctl and the label of the partition. Example with a partition named Games:

udisksctl mount -b /dev/disk/by-label/Games

Use ls to get the labels:

ls /dev/disk/by-label

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