Unable to load my external HDD

Question

I'm running Ubuntu 15.10 in my PC in dual boot mode along with Win 10. I have been trying to use my WD external HDD, but an error is preventing me from doing so. This is what pops up when I connect the HDD via USB:

Error mounting /dev/sdb1 at /media/mahendranath/My Passport: Command-line `mount -t "exfat" -o "uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid,uid=1000,gid=1000,iocharset=utf8,namecase=0,errors=remount-ro,umask=0077" "/dev/sdb1" "/media/mahendranath/My Passport"' exited with non-zero exit status 32: mount: unknown filesystem type 'exfat'

On the other hand, I'm able to connect and use the HDD quite well in Win 10. What may be the reason for this and how I fix it? Thanks :)

Answer 1

As it's been mentioned in the error:

unknown filesystem type 'exfat'

It means that you don't have the exfat file system.

To install exfat, do:

sudo apt-get install exfat-fuse exfat-utils

You should now be able to mount your external HDD.

Also, you might need to reboot your PC for the changes to take effect.