Check the computer file system to see whether your Windows disk is mounted somewhere. If so, see whether it does hold your Windows files (maybe down in the Users folder somewhere). You want to figure out what device the disk is. Is it /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, ...?
Try mounting the disk using
sudo -u root mkdir /c sudo -u root mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /cThe preamble sudo -u root is only needed when you are not logged in as root. On my machine, /dev/sda1 is the recovery Windows disk, and the normal Windows disk is /dev/sda2, so I must use sda2 instead of sda1. Old Linux versions might use hda instead of sda. To see what is on the disk that you just mounted, try ls /c or more generally
sudo -u root ls /c sudo -u root ls /c/Users
If you are not logged on as root, you need to check that your numeric user ID and group ID are indeed 1000. Do
ls -la ls -naThe third and fourth columns should give your user and group IDs in the output of the second command.
Add the Windows disk to the system file /etc/fstab that mounts the disks during boot with the proper parameters:
sudoedit -u root /etc/fstabor just nano /etc/fstab if you are logged in as root. At the end of the file add a line of the form
/dev/sda1 /c ntfs-3g defaults,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0if you do not log in as root, or just
/dev/sda1 /c ntfs-3g defaults 0 0if you do. Of course, substitute the appropriate values of your system for sda1 and 1000. The purpose of the uid and gid is to give you permission to change and delete your own files. Otherwise, you will be refused that permission.
External USB disks can be mounted in similar ways. I have two that I like to see mounted in locations /h and /j. To do so, I created /h and /j like /c above. Then in my particular situation, I could use an /etc/fstab file of the form
#If you do not know the type of file system, look it up in the properties of the disk or try "auto". Leave uid and gid out if you log in as root.proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 /dev/sda6 / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1 /dev/sda5 none swap sw 0 0 /dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0 /dev/sda2 /c ntfs-3g defaults,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0 /dev/sde1 /h vfat defaults,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0 /dev/sdd1 /j vfat defaults,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0
However, there is a problem. Depending on exactly what USB port they are hooked up to, and when, my H and J disks might have different device names than /dev/sde1 respectively /dev/sdd1. But I still want to back up to the same physical disk. Therefor it is better to use hardware addresses for at least your USB disks. You can find them in a terminal using, e.g.,
sudo vol_id /dev/sdd1which tells me that /dev/sdd1 (the J disk) has the following properties:
ID_FS_USAGE=filesystem ID_FS_TYPE=vfat ID_FS_VERSION=FAT32 ID_FS_UUID=D55F-3383 ID_FS_UUID_ENC=D55F-3383 ID_FS_LABEL=J ID_FS_LABEL_ENC=J
I can now use the UUID to ensure that it is always the J disk that is mounted in directory /j. My actual /etc/fstab file follows this procedure and it actually is:
#Do not mess up the lines that mount the system disk and swap space!proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 UUID=db6f8822-98c7-4394-b067-3be67d6c9088 / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1 UUID=0dd38a63-e21e-44db-bb08-19706cd62546 none swap sw 0 0 /dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0 UUID=1C0694D10694AD70 /c ntfs-3g defaults,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0 UUID=4466-C6C4 /h vfat defaults,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0 UUID=D55F-3383 /j vfat defaults,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0
Check that after reboot, you can indeed freely access your disks. To get rid of a badly mounted disk on /j, use umount /j. First make sure no terminal window or file browser windows uses that disk. To try out a different mount interactively, use something like
sudo -u root mount -t vfat -o defaults,uid=1000,gid=1000 /dev/sdd1 /jor just
mount -t vfat -o defaults /dev/sdd1 /jif you are logged in as root. Try auto instead of vfat if you are unsure about the file system. See man mount for more.
A problem with Ubuntu is that it does not automatically put links on the desktop for disks mounted like that. Therefor, in a terminal window, I did it myself using:
cd Desktop ln -s /c C ln -s /c/f/dvdlib dvdlib ln -s /home/dommelen Home ln -s /h H ln -s /j JThe folder /c/f/dvdlib on my Windows disk contains a listing of the contents of my collection of DVDs. For dommelen, substitute your username, or replace /home/dommelen by /root if you login as root.
When at work, I like to have my disk on the college Sun cluster mounted on my private PC. The normal way to do that is using Samba. Unfortunately, the college requires plain text passwords, and modern Linux versions of Samba will only transmit encrypted ones. A fix up is to open a file browser window, and then go into the File/ menu and select "Connect to Server." Use "ssh" and specify as folder the full path to your home folder on the remote cluster as found from pwd, in my case "/home/facstaff/dommelen". Your disk will be mounted much like it was a local disk. (But with definite limitations: usually you must move the files to a local disk before you can really use them.) The method works very nicely for my Debian desktop at work. My home laptop with Ubuntu seems to be losing the connection a lot. I have not examined carefully why.