Before you can use a USB hard drive in the Linux operating system (such as Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Fedora or Linux Mint) you must first "mount" the drive. This is a process where you associate the drive with a folder on the computer so that the operating system can recognize the drive and allow you to write files to and from the folder that it is associated with.
Step 1
Log in to your operating system and open a terminal shell from the desktop "Terminal" shortcut.
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Step 2
Type "fdisk -l" to see a list of drives on your computer and to get the name of the USB hard drive (this name is usually "/dev/sdb1" or similar).
Step 3
Create a folder to associate with your USB hard drive by typing "mkdir /mnt/usbdrive" and pressing "Enter."
Step 4
Type "mount -t /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbdrive" and press "Enter" to mount your USB hard drive to the folder you created.
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