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Mount External Drive

To mount an external HDD read/write at /mnt/gdrive10tb on Linux Mint (works the same on Ubuntu/Debian).

Identify the external HDD

Plug in the drive, then run:

lsblk -f

You’ll see something like:

sdb
└─sdb1 ext4   GDRIVE10TB  a1b2c3d4-...

Take note of:

  • Device: /dev/sdb1
  • Filesystem: ext4, ntfs, or exfat
  • UUID (recommended for fstab)

Create the mount point

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/gdrive10tb

Test a manual mount (important)

If the drive is ext4 (best case)

sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/gdrive10tb

Check:

mount | grep gdrive10tb

Fix ownership (for write access without sudo)

If you mounted successfully but can only write as root:

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /mnt/gdrive10tb

Test:

touch /mnt/gdrive10tb/testfile

Make it persistent (auto-mount at boot)

Get the UUID

blkid /dev/sdb1 # or use lsblk -f

Example output:

UUID="a1b2c3d4-5678" TYPE="ext4"

Edit /etc/fstab

sudo vim /etc/fstab

Add one of the following lines

UUID=a1b2c3d4-5678  /mnt/gdrive10tb  ext4  defaults,noatime  0  2

NTFS

UUID=a1b2c3d4-5678  /mnt/gdrive10tb  ntfs-3g  rw,uid=1000,gid=1000,noatime  0  0

exFAT

UUID=a1b2c3d4-5678  /mnt/gdrive10tb  exfat  rw,uid=1000,gid=1000,noatime  0  0

(uid=1000 is your normal user on Linux Mint.)

Test fstab safely (do NOT reboot yet)

sudo mount -a

Verify read/write access

df -h | grep gdrive10tb
touch /mnt/gdrive10tb/works.txt

Common pitfalls (Mint users hit these)

  • NTFS drive mounted read-only → Windows Fast Startup wasn’t disabled Fix in Windows:
Control Panel → Power Options → Disable Fast Startup

  • Permission denied after reboot → You forgot uid= / gid= on NTFS/exFAT

  • Drive not present at boot → Add nofail to fstab:

defaults,nofail