How to automount NTFS partitions?

Question

I have two NTFS partitions, and I don't want to mount them everytime I start Ubuntu.

• How can I do this?
• Is there a tool or a code to use?
• If so, is it safe to automount? specially when they are being used by another OS?

Answer 1

The most straight forward way that will work on most Linux systems is to add them to your fstab. But there are others. Each has there own headline in this answer.

Note:

If you get an error massage saying something about "root" or "permissions" it is because for most mounting options you will need root privileges. In unity you can achieve that by prepending gksudo (graphical applications) or sudo to the usual command and typing your password. So, e.g. in case of ntfs-config you press Alt+F2 and type gksudo ntfs-config.

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Gigolo

Gigolo

Gigolo is self-explanatory. It works hand in hand with nautilus' remote file system and mounting capabilities. You need to add the partitions to your nautilus bookmarks (nautilus is ubuntu's default file manager). After that you will find them in Gigolo. The rest is said another post of mine.

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Fstab

Edit: Since guessing from your comments you are not that acquainted with linux I will explain the procedure in more detail:

The fstab-method is cleaner and more basic than gui-tools or gigolo. It will also work on other systems even those that are text-mode only. In principle you don't need to install anything. For each ntfs-partition you will have to add one line to the file called /etc/fstab. For me the line I added looks like this:

#Windows-Partition
UUID=<xxxxx> /media/win ntfs rw,auto,users,exec,nls=utf8,umask=003,gid=46,uid=1000    0   0

The part that says UUID=<xxxxx> tells your system which partition to mount. If you follow this procedure and have duplicate devices showing up, replace UUID=<xxxx> with /dev/disk/by-uuid/<xxxxx>. Each partition has it's own unique UUID. Spaces are important, so best copy&paste the line. Replace auto by noauto to manually mount. Users should be in the group plugdev.

Note that if this line is at the very end of your file there should be a newline after it. Mount will complain if you don't have it.

finding the uuid:

Open Disk Utility and identify the proper partitions by their size (e.g. 120 GB), file system (e.g. ntfs) and name. Note their "Device:" file (e.g. /dev/sdb1). Instead you can run the following command in a Terminal such as gnome-terminal:

sudo fdisk -l

You can find out the uuid of your partitions by running sudo blkid in shell. The output looks somewhat like this:

confus@confusion:~$ sudo blkid
[sudo] password for confus: 
/dev/sda1: LABEL="boot" UUID="cc425c68-704f-4836-9123-bbb3aea64471" TYPE="ext2" 
/dev/sda2: UUID="1c8b1489-e111-481c-89f2-743203c3ee7d" TYPE="crypto_LUKS" 
/dev/sda3: UUID="7258CB9858CB598D" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda4: LABEL="HP_TOOLS" UUID="1405-0A4C" TYPE="vfat" 
/dev/mapper/lukslvm: UUID="xZSNtR-MocS-dLMk-vOWa-Ay65-wS9b-GqaNhV" TYPE="LVM2_member" 
/dev/mapper/vgubuntu-swap: UUID="f415f3b9-4e4d-48b1-99c2-605e16532f9e" TYPE="swap" 
/dev/mapper/vgubuntu-root: UUID="62a862b4-e6c8-4efd-90b5-55eab8e83e39" TYPE="ext4"

The correct UUID will have the proper device file in front of it and TYPE="ntfs" after. So for me the UUID is "7258CB9858CB598D". For you this number will be different. Also I have only one NTFS partition. Subitute my UUID in the lines you add to fstab by the one you found this way.

setting the mount point

Now the mount-point. For each partition this will be different. I chooose /media/win You can choose whatever you like. It just has to be an existing empty folder. You could just as well create the folder /home/yourusername/windows1 and then put it in your fstab.

the other parameters in my line

ntfs just tells the fstab, that it is a ntfs-type partition.

rw,auto,user,exec,nls=utf8,umask=003,gid=46,uid=1000 0 0 need not concern you. Just use those values as they are. They should be fine. It not or if you're just intrested, you can read an explanation of these parameters in the link I provided earlier.

When you added the lines and did all of the stuff I described, save the file and run sudo mount -a in shell. If you can access your partitions through their mountpoints and no errors are printed out, then all went well. If not check for typos and obvious errors. Don't reboot if sudo mount -a displays errors! With errors a reboot might fail.

finding your user and group id

You can find out your user and group id with the id command.

confus@confusion:~$ id
uid=1000(confus) gid=1000(confus) groups=1000(confus),4(adm),7(lp),20(dialout),24(cdrom),46(plugdev),112(lpadmin),120(admin),122(sambashare)

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ntfs-config

A graphical tool ntfs-config is also available but not necessary (and obviously it's current version doesn't work in natty - suppose that will be fixed soon). Besides you might loose old settings in your fstab with this tool (e.g. mounting the cache in the memory), because it overwrites the /etc/fstab file instead of appending things.

Answer 2

I think the easiest way is to use disks (gnome-disk-utility) which comes with Ubuntu by default.

Just launch disks, go to the partition you want to automatically mount at startup, press the gears button and go to "Edit mount options". Then, uncheck "Automatic Mount Options" and check "Mount at startup". I think you can leave everything else as default, press OK, insert the password and reboot.

Answer 3

Arios-Automount

You might use this simple and small software:

• Add this PPA by the command:

  sudo apt-add-repository ppa:trebelnik-stefina/multisystem 
  

• Update the index files:

  sudo apt-get update
  

• Install the arios-automount package:

  sudo apt-get install arios-automount
  

This tiny software will mount all your ntfs partition. And it do this before your Login.

Hope this will help.

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Update

The PPA doesn't work in Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial

Answer 4

This is a solution I originally posted for crunchbang. It seems to work for Ubuntu and mint as well. You can add a startup entry with the following command:

gvfs-mount -d /dev/sda3

Where in this case, /dev/sda3 is your NTFS partition

Answer 5

ntfs-config

This program allow you to easily configure all of your NTFS devices to allow write support via a friendly gui. For that use, it will configure them to use the open source ntfs-3g driver. You’ll also be able to easily disable this feature.

Project Home page :- http://flomertens.free.fr/ntfs-config/

Requirements

Install NTFS-config in Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install ntfs-config

This will install all the required packages for ntfs-config including ntfs-3g

Using Ntfs-Config

If you want to open this application try to find --> NTFS Configuration Tool

Now it will prompt for root password enter root password and click ok

It will show the available NTFS partition.

You need to select the partitions you want to configure,add the name of the mount point and click on apply.

Select the NTFS Write support which is suitable for you i.e internal or external

if you want to unmount you should be root to unmount and then right click on mount point select Unmount Volume

Conclusion

As you can see, mounting NTFS partitions in Linux can be a breeze. If you don't like or fear the command line, you can achieve a lot with just a few mouse clicks. Truth to be told, this is much simpler than mounting strange, new, unknown partitions in Windows.

Well, that's it. Happy Linuxing!

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P.D : Update for Natty user

If you upgraded to Ubuntu Natty you will notice that NTFS configuration tool is not working even though it prompts you for root privileges.

The problem is that when you open the tool nothing happens. Well it’s due to a missing folder and in order to fix this you should enter the following command:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/hal/fdi/policy

Now you have the tool working just select the partitions you want to automatically mount on boot and if you want WRITE access just TICK the corresponding check boxes.

Easy enough :P

Answer 6

To enable or disable automount open a terminal and type dconf-editor followed by the [Enter] key.

Browse to

org.gnome.desktop.media-handling

The automount key controls whether to automatically mount media. If set to true, then Nautilus will automatically mount media such as user-visible hard disks and removable media on start-up and media insertion.

There is another key

org.gnome.desktop.media-handling.automount-open

This controls whether to automatically open a folder for automounted media.

If set to true, then Nautilus will automatically open a folder when media is automounted. This only applies to media where no known x-content/* type was detected; for media where a known x-content type is detected, the user configurable action will be taken instead.

Source: Ubuntu Documentation

Answer 7

You may try to solve this problem by mounting the HD at boot time and probably one of the easiest way to do it is by using pysdm.

sudo apt-get install pysdm

Once installed you can follow the steps included in this post

Answer 8

This is a safe way of going about things. I don't think it's particular risky having a purely data Windows partition auto-mounting at boot. But I would leave the partition the OS is installed on in a noauto set-up.

You'll need the ntfs-3g package.

First find the UUIDs of the partitions in question by doing in a terminal:

$ sudo blkid

Now you need to edit your /etc/fstab to configure whether these two partitions will auto-mount or not. In a terminal do:

$ gksudo gedit /etc/fstab

You may already have a couple of lines for the NTFS partitions. If not you'll need to make some. They'll look something like this (depending on mount points and UUIDs):

UUID=76E4F702E4F6C401  /media/windowsOS    ntfs-3g  noauto,defaults,locale=en_US.utf8  0  0
UUID=76E4F702E4F6C402  /media/windowsdata  ntfs-3g  defaults,locale=en_US.utf8         0  0

Note the noauto option. This means that partition won't automatically mount at boot. You'll need to manually mount it when you want access to it.

Answer 9

Look at the community documentation on fstab. Also try searching for NTFS Configuration Tool in the Ubuntu Software Center