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I installed Ubuntu Desktop 14.04 on my PC. I have bought a hard disk and added it to my PC. The computer does not recognize the new hard drive. How can I let my Ubuntu use the new HDD I bought?

2 Answers 2

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Your hard disk might have no partitions yet.Therefore it's not usable until you make a partition.

You can install the software gParted from Ubuntu software center, and make a new partition in your new hard disk.

Open gParted and select the correct drive from top right drop down list:

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Choose Device menu > Create Partition Table

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Create a new msdos partition table.

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Now add a new partition to the table by right clicking on unallocated space.

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Setup your partition:
(TIP: Ext4 file system is efficient. NTFS file system is supported by Microsoft Windows)

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Once done click on the right button:

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Its is better to reboot your computer. Then your new hard disk will be available to use.

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    Reboot? What would be the point in that? Rebooting will mount every auto-mount partition from /etc/fstab but so will mount -a.
    – MSalters
    Jun 3, 2014 at 16:12
  • @MSalters: To make sure the disks are synced, buffer is flushed & then kernel is ok with the new partition. It's not essentially required. More info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sync_%28Unix%29
    – Naveen
    Jun 4, 2014 at 2:25
  • Why would you care if the disk is sync'ed? Disks, new and old are usually in an unsync'ed state. Buffer, same story. And kernels are of course OK with new partitions. That is basic functionality, whether you use it for CD's, USB sticks, or just new drives.
    – MSalters
    Jun 4, 2014 at 6:30
  • I occasionally have trouble with syncing when formatting my USB device. It usually doesn't sync after making a new partition, but requests a reboot for the Kernel to identify the changes and mount it properly.
    – Naveen
    Jun 4, 2014 at 7:35
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It does highly depend on what ptoblems you do encounzer, but in general I'd say that hard drives can be supposed to be detected by the BIOS.

If this is the case run:

$ sudo lshw -C disk

to get information about the drive. There should be one column for the new disk which contains logical name. That name will then be used to mount the disk. Let's assume that it is /dev/sdb.

$ mkdir $HOME/my_new_drive
$ sudo mount /dev/sdb $HOME/my_new_drive

Will then make your new drive available under the directory $HOME/my_new_drive.

If you want to get the drive mounted everytime you boot you'll need to modify the fstab. Refer to the manual for further hints.

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