mounting a fat32 hard drive in xubuntu

[engagedswitch]

hello everyone how are you today?? fine here
the situation i have is i have a spare 13 gig hard drive that is formatted at fat32 and what i am needing to know is how do i mount it so i can use it as a storage drive??

secondly after i mount it i plan on using a partition editor to change for fat32 to ext3.
now i am know a few basic things about terminal like the ls command,cd, and how the apt-get system but i have no clue how to mount a drive this. the only thing i know about it for sure is that i need to make sure linux sees it and find out what it has labeled it.

any help will be greatly appericated.
thanks in advance and have a great day
jeremy

[reed9]

I've never had a FAT32 drive that wasn't autodetected in linux. When you plug it in, it doesn't show up?

Plug in the drive and post the output of the following two commands

lsusb
sudo fdisk -l

As for partitioning, you don't want it mounted to partition. If it isn't already installed, install gparted (sudo apt-get install gparted). It's very easy to use.

[engagedswitch]

ls usb=

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 093a:2468 Pixart Imaging, Inc. Cammaestro 2.5DU/X-EYE/Orite SC-120/ICGear TravelCam/Easy Snap Snake Eye WebCam
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

fdisk -i=

Usage: fdisk [-b SSZ] [-u] DISK Change partition table
fdisk -l [-b SSZ] [-u] DISK List partition table(s)
fdisk -s PARTITION Give partition size(s) in blocks
fdisk -v Give fdisk version
Here DISK is something like /dev/hdb or /dev/sda
and PARTITION is something like /dev/hda7
-u: give Start and End in sector (instead of cylinder) units
-b 2048: (for certain MO disks) use 2048-byte sectors

this drive has data on it and i dont want to lose it if possbile
thanks for all the help
jeremy

[reed9]

fdisk -i

This should be a lower case L, not an i.

[engagedswitch]

This should be a lower case L, not an i.

sorry about that sudo fdisk -l gives the following

Disk /dev/sda: 41.1 GB, 41110142976 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4998 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5b1e8bb1

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 4620 37110118+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 4621 4998 3036285 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 4621 4998 3036253+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 15.0 GB, 15000330240 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1823 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000b5bc8

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 1823 14643216 83 Linux

[reed9]

Disk /dev/sdb: 15.0 GB, 15000330240 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1823 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000b5bc8

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 1823 14643216 83 Linux

Unless you have a 3rd harddrive you haven't mentioned, this should be the drive. Only it's not formatted as FAT32. FAT32 would show up like

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1        1823     14643216    83  W95 FAT32

Try mounting it and see what's in there.

sudo mkdir /mnt/HD
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/HD

Now in your filemanager, look under File System>mnt>HD.

To unmount do

sudo umount /mnt/HD

Once you have formatted the drive to your liking, you'll want to setup an /etc/fstab entry to mount it along with your regular harddrives. These guides should point in the right direction for that.

Mounting Linux Partitions in Ubuntu
Fstab - ArchWiki

[D-cat]

Ummm, first I'd simply type mount to see if that drive/partition is already mounted. Based on lsusb output, I don't think the usb controller is being seen, thus no usb hard drive in the fdisk -l output.

[reed9]

I was under the impression this was an internal hard drive, not USB.

[D-cat]

You're right, he never mentioned one way or another. I must have gotten confused. Still, if it's already mounted for whatever reason, that'll still tell you where.