Mounting Windows Partitions in Ubuntu

Ubuntu will automatically mount external drives, but for some reason it will not automatically mount internal drives. So this will show you how to mount (or make available for use) internal NTFS-formatted (i.e., Windows) drives in Ubuntu.

Mount Windows through the menu

You can mount Windows drives through the Places menu. Unfortunately, the only way to identify your drive is by its size.

Using NTFS Config

Let's say you don't want to manually mount the Windows drive every time you boot up Ubuntu. If you want it permanently mounted, a little utility called NTFS Config can help you. Go ahead and install ntfs-config. If you don't know how to install software in Ubuntu, read this.

Once ntfs-config is installed, go to System > Administration > NTFS Configuration Tool to launch it.

Where it says , type what directory you want the drive to appear in. /media/Windows is a good choice if you can't think of anything else.

The window hiding behind that one allows you to enable write support for the device, too.

Editing the /etc/fstab

This tutorial has shown you how to mount Windows partitions and drives graphically. If you are either having trouble doing this or you would like a little more control over the details of the process, you can do so by manually editing the /etc/fstab file, which controls the mounting of drives and partitions at boot time. For more details on this process, check out this other tutorial.