How to mount a usb drive on a Linux Machine

Mounting a USB Drive On Linux

Fiorst list the root directory to determine where the mount point will be created.

root@xxxxxx:/# ls
 bin        dev           home        lib64     media  
 opt         root          sbin      sys         usr
 boot       etc           lib       lost+found  mnt     
 proc        run           srv       tmp        var

root@axxxxx:/# cd mnt
root@xxxxxx:/mnt# ls

root@xxxxxx:/# !Here no storage devices mounted(Note)

Creating a Mount point: A mount point is a location on your directory tree to mount the partition. The default location is /media although you may use alternate locations such as /mnt or your home directory.

Note: We are using /mnt here to mount point (mnt) and the partition (usbdrive).

root@xxxxxx:/# mkdir /mnt/usbdrive
root@xxxxxx:/#
root@xxxxxx:/#
root@xxxxxx:/# ls /mnt/

usbdrive

Here the usb drive partition is created

Mounting the USB Drive

(A) Note: Here i used “TAB” to display both device node

root@xxxxxx:/# mount /dev/sdc
sdc sdc1

(B)—root@xxxxxx:/# mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/usbdrive/

Now listing the mount driveand partition we have

 root@xxxxxx:/# ls mnt/usbdrive/
 dump lost+found

How to get a usb uuid to make the partition auto-mount

First find out the UUID by using this parameter ( /dev/sda3) or ( /dev/sdxy)
or alternatively by doing (sudo blkid)

root@xxxxxx:/# ls /dev/disk/by-uuid/
 16b4a593-92ed-4ea0-b7ef-72b6a655c554 b505d17c-eaab-48ab-af5d-922267d4bfee
 190D-B412 b7cf9ba6-f97b-4863-8c94-2973d09bbe6c
 4aa11a9a-ebda-41c9-b694-a12a00f0100f fe932ccb-2ebe-4727-a5ea-d70142ed371f
 667e0094-352e-461c-a568-e182677465fb

root@xxxxxx:/#

Note: Partitions listed in fstab can be configured to automatically mount during the boot process.
If a device/partition is not listed in fstab ONLY ROOT may mount the device/partition.

Now to make the usb persistant when ever it reboots, you have to edit /etc/fstab file and also specify the file system.

root@alaska:/# nano /etc/fstab
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
 /dev/pve/root / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
 /dev/pve/data /var/lib/vz ext4 defaults 0 1
 /dev/pve/swap none swap sw 0 0
 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
 /dev/disk/by-uuid/16b4a593-92ed-4ea0-b7ef-72b6a655c554 /mnt/usbdrive ext4 defaults 0 1
 Note: we added the last line above for the mounted usb

How to use the cat command to view it

root@alaska:/# cat /etc/fstab
 # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
 /dev/pve/root / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
 /dev/pve/data /var/lib/vz ext4 defaults 0 1
 /dev/pve/swap none swap sw 0 0
 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
 /dev/disk/by-uuid/16b4a593-92ed-4ea0-b7ef-72b6a655c554 /mnt/usbdrive ext4 defaults 0 1

Dump and Pass explanation: Dump: This field sets whether the backup utility dump will backup file system. If set to “0” file system ignored, “1” file system is backed up.

Dump is seldom used and if in doubt use 0.

root@xxxxxx:/#

Note: Pass (fsck order): Fsck order is to tell fsck what order to check the file systems, if set to “0” file system is ignored.

Often a source of confusion, there are only 3 options :
0 == do not check.
1 == check this partition first.
2 == check this partition(s) next
In practice, use "1" for your root partition, / and 2 for the rest.
All partitions marked with a "2" are checked in sequence and you do not need to specify an order.

See these links for more information on how to mount a usb drive
– http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/72393/mounting-all-partitions-on-hard-disk-automatically-on-linux-mint
– http://askubuntu.com/questions/45607/how-to-mount-partition-permanentlyhttps://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/USB_storage_devices
– https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Fstab

Also See the #man mount on any of your favourite linux distribution.