How can I access my USB drive from my Windows Subsystem for Linux -- Ubuntu distribution?

Question

How can I access my system's USB drive in Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)? I'm using an Ubuntu distribution.

Answer 1

It's quite simple:

1. Create the mount point: mkdir /mnt/g (add whatever word or letter you want, I used the matching letter to the windows drive. You might need to use sudo to create the directory in the /mnt directory.)

2. Mount the drive to the directory using sudo mount -t drvfs G: /mnt/g

Answer 2

Consider a slight alternative on the currently accepted answer:

sudo mkdir /mnt/<usb_drive_letter>
sudo mount -t drvfs <usb_drive_letter>: /mnt/<usb_drive_Letter> -o uid=$(id -u $USER),gid=$(id -g $USER),metadata

For a USB drive which is assigned in Windows to H:, for example:

sudo mkdir /mnt/h
sudo mount -t drvfs h: /mnt/h -o uid=$(id -u $USER),gid=$(id -g $USER),metadata

In general, the accepted answer will work, but note that drives that are manually mounted this way do not follow the normal WSL automount settings.

Most fixed Windows drives will be mounted:

• In /mnt/<drive_letter for each drive.
• With the default WSL user and its primary group as the owner of the mount.
• A default umask/fmask/dmask of 000
• The metadata disabled for performance, which means only a "simplified permission" model will be used to map Windows/NTFS and Linux permissions.

However, USB drives that are manually mounted do not follow the [automount] settings.

At the very least, you'll probably want your WSL user to be the owner, which is done with the -o uid=$(id -u $USER),gid=$(id -g $USER) (usually, this is the same as -o uid=1000,gid=1000` in a default Ubuntu/WSL installation).

Adding in the metadata option can be useful if you want to preserve permissions via rsync or cp -a.

Answer 3

The answer from NotTheDr01ds was very useful, although I did not find this to be the full answer.

Anyone feel free to edit the following with additional clarity and extra information, the following is a sequential list of tasks before I could copy to a WSL Distro with an attached storage device for running a backup.

Windows 10 host: ensure SSH Service is active

PowerShell (as Admin)...

Start-Service sshd
Note the real Windows 10 username (only require after the forward-slash)

Source Linux/macOS host: test connectivity / login with the Windows 10 Local Account password

Remote Shell...

ssh Username@192.168.0.10

Windows 10 host: If requiring update/reset to local account password

PowerShell or Command Prompt...

# Use following in Command Prompt / PowerShell. Be aware this will require reboot and login with this password before Windows 10 PIN etc. will work again
net user Username PASSWORD_HERE

NOTE: rsync incompatibilities

The rsync binary may be too low on different Ubuntu distros which may cause unexpected errors from recent rsync development incompatibilities

NOTE: rsync unsupported features with Windows WSL

• use of '--crtimes' will result in errors such as.... rsync: The server does not support --crtimes (-N)
• use of '--fileflags' will result in errors such as.... rsync: on remote machine: --fileflags: unknown option
• use of '--xattrs' will result in errors such as.... rsync: [receiver] rsync_xal_set: lsetxattr("/mnt/h/path/.filename.txt.AB1de","user.com.apple.macl") failed: Operation not supported (95)

In addition, Windows WSL rsync is temperamental and may require the drive mounted with -o metadata to permit....

• use of --perms
• use of --times

Windows 10 host: If rsync incompatibility

May have to consider using OpenSUSE Tumbleweed for rsync 3.2.7+ package (at time of writing, not available with Ubuntu distros).

PowerShell...

wsl --install --distribution openSUSE-Tumbleweed

WSL Distro Shell...

# Example
zypper install rsync

Windows 10 WSL Distro: Mount the desired drive

To mount a drive to the WSL OS (e.g. an external disk drive), run the following from Admin user (e.g. user 1000); do NOT run this from root (e.g. user 0)

On reboot of Windows, this will likely reset the mount options to noatime.

WSL Distro Shell...

sudo mkdir /mnt/h
sudo mount -t drvfs H:\\ /mnt/h -o rw,relatime,dirsync,metadata,uid=$(id -u $USER),gid=$(id -g $USER)
exit

Then, to enable rsync to begin working the WSL Distro must be rebooted. Shutdown the WSL instance and start the instance again

PowerShell...

wsl --shutdown
wsl -d openSUSE-Tumbleweed

From the source Linux/macOS host: dry run test

Establish the sync works (use the Windows 10 Local Account password).

Remote shell...

/usr/local/bin/rsync \
--dry-run \
--rsync-path='wsl rsync' \
--recursive --perms --times --human-readable --itemize-changes --copy-links --progress \
--exclude '.DS_Store' \
/path/test \
Username@192.168.0.10:/mnt/h/test

From the source Linux/macOS host, real test

Establish the sync works to transfer the directories and files (use the Windows 10 Local Account password).

Remote shell...

/usr/local/bin/rsync \
--rsync-path='wsl rsync' \
--recursive --perms --times --human-readable --itemize-changes --copy-links --progress \
--exclude '.DS_Store' \
/path/test \
Username@192.168.0.10:/mnt/h/test

From the source Linux/macOS host, perform checksum double check

After sync works (use the Windows 10 Local Account password), establish all files were copied across correctly with checksum.

Remote shell...

/usr/local/bin/rsync \
--checksum \
--checksum-choice=md5 \
--rsync-path='wsl rsync' \
--recursive --perms --times --human-readable --itemize-changes --copy-links --progress \
--exclude '.DS_Store' \
/path/test \
Username@192.168.0.10:/mnt/h/test