How To Access Your Windows Hard Drive From Ubuntu

November 6th, 2006 · by Dean · 20 Comments

Whilst helping one of my readers install Ubuntu I came across a link on how to access information on a Windows hard drive from Ubuntu.

The link is specifically for people whose Windows installation has crashed and need to recover information via Ubuntu, but is equally useful for people who have a working Windows installation and need to share data between Ubuntu and Windows.

The instructions to follow in Ubuntu are as follows:
1. Open a Terminal window. From the menus at the top of the screen, choose Applications | Accessories | Terminal

2. Enter the following inside the Terminal window to create a folder which maps to your Windows hard drive. Be careful to ensure that you replace the reference to /dev/hda1 below with the device name of your Windows hard drive. I used the GNOME Partition Manager to find out the device name. You will also need to replace the reference to ntfs if your Windows hard drive uses another file system.

cd /mnt
sudo mk.dir windrive (remove the dot between mk and dir – I had to enter that here to get round a mod_security rule whilst creating this post!)
sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/windrive -o “umask=022″
ls windrive

3. You should now a list of files from your Windows hard drive in the Terminal window. If you want a more graphical view of the files then do the following:

4. From the menus at the top of the Ubuntu screen Select Places | Computer

5. Double-click on the Filesystem icon

6. Double-click on the mnt folder we created earlier

7. You should now see a folder called windrive with all your Windows files inside

The complete post goes on to show how you can create a shared drive using Samba. Full credit to the original author. You may already know this information, but if not, I hope you find it useful.

Actions

Bookmark

Tags: gnome, Linux, samba, top10posts, Tutorials, Ubuntu, windows

20 responses so far ↓

1 How To Access Your Windows Hard Drive From Ubuntu « Technical Itch // Nov 6, 2006 at 8:15 pm

[...] How To Access Your Windows Hard Drive From Ubuntu Posted November 6, 2006 [...]
2 Ethel // May 18, 2007 at 4:14 am

Thank you for this post! Just saved me a chance at a job – I need to update my resume on our computer that will no longer run Windows, and for some reason my husband who normally deals with this kind of stuff couldn’t figure out how to access Windows files in Ubuntu – he got stuck at how to mount the hard drive. And for some reason his Google search for directions didn’t turn up this page.
3 Dean // May 18, 2007 at 7:20 am

Glad I could help out!
4 Ben // Jul 21, 2007 at 7:58 am

hello, maybe you can answer my question, i guess i already had my hard drive mounted, im new at this by the way, i followed your instructions but i still have what i already had, a “read-only” disc. I need to be able to save file and what not to that drive. Any knowhow on how i might do that. Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thankyou
5 Dean // Jul 22, 2007 at 9:27 am

Hi Ben,

Can you confirm what you want to do. Are you trying to save a file to your Windows hard drive from Ubuntu?
6 Dean // Jul 22, 2007 at 6:44 pm

Here are a couple of links which I think might help:

http://onlyubuntu.blogspot.com/2007/03/widows-ntfs-partitions-readwrite.html
http://www.arsgeek.com/?p=585

Let me know if this works.
7 Access Windows Files booted from Kubuntu Disc (help meeeeeee!) - Linux Forums // Oct 21, 2007 at 8:04 pm

[...] How To Access Your Windows Hard Drive From Ubuntu Or this guide seems like it would be perfect but as soon as I get to this step…. ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt$ sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sda /mnt/windrive -o "umask=022" mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda, missing codepage or other error In some cases useful info is found in syslog – try dmesg | tail or so that happens! whats going on? [...]
8 Installation Notes « Projects 2008 // Aug 10, 2008 at 8:08 am

[...] How to access your Windows hard drive from Ubuntu http://technical-itch.co.uk/2006/11/06/how-to-access-your-windows-hard-drive-from-ubuntu/ [...]
9 Matt // Sep 29, 2008 at 10:30 pm

I have done this and i can see my windows files but i cannot see any of my music, videos or pictures that are saved in the music, videos and pictures folders in my documents. It will just open as a blank folder. Any ideas?
10 Joe // Oct 11, 2008 at 4:08 am

Hi, after I enter udo mk.dir windrive into the Terminal i am asked by the terminal for the sudo password, i type in the next line of command and i dont know what the sudo password means
can you help me out?
11 Dean // Oct 11, 2008 at 9:04 am

Sudo is a Linux command which allows you to run programs which require special security privileges. More information here.
12 Joe // Oct 11, 2008 at 1:04 pm

ok, thanks
13 odnode // Oct 28, 2008 at 1:09 am

Thanks for this.
My Windows drive crashed (blues Screen of Death)
Trying to get at some data files via Ubuntu bu tit appears Ubuntu wants a Windows drive with clean shutdown. Please advice!~

$LogFile indicates unclean shutdown (0, 0)
Failed to mount ‘/dev/sda1′: Operation not supported
Mount is denied because NTFS is marked to be in use. Choose one action:

Choice 1: If you have Windows then disconnect the external devices by
clicking on the ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ icon in the Windows
taskbar then shutdown Windows cleanly.

Choice 2: If you don’t have Windows then you can use the ‘force’ option for
your own responsibility. For example type on the command line:

mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windrive -o force

Or add the option to the relevant row in the /etc/fstab file:

/dev/sda1 /mnt/windrive ntfs-3g force 0 0
14 Dean // Oct 28, 2008 at 9:17 am

odnode,
Is it an internal or external hard drive?
15 xkristx // Nov 15, 2008 at 4:50 am

hey… thanks for this post. i’m saving files now from dead vista… any tips on reinstalling vista x64 without making changes to ubuntu & still keep the dual os booting? thanks again. you’ve saved us lots of troubles. thanks!
16 audrey // Dec 6, 2008 at 9:33 pm

Thank you! This was very helpful for me. I’m a total newb.
17 Playing with Ubuntu at I Hate Google.org - Search Engine Optimization News and Tidbits (a.k.a. I Love Google.org) // Jan 21, 2009 at 1:55 am

[...] http://technical-itch.co.uk/2006/11/06/how-to-access-your-windows-hard-drive-from-ubuntu/ [...]
18 Tom // Apr 2, 2009 at 8:23 am

Thanks! That worked perfectly well
19 Naz // Apr 23, 2009 at 12:39 pm

Hi, first of all superb tutorial and thank you very much.

However whenever I reboot it just demounts. Anyway I can get it to automount when I log in?
20 Dean // Apr 23, 2009 at 4:05 pm

Naz,
The Ubuntu Forums should be able to answer your question. I found this thread which may steer you in the right direction.