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I recently built a PC for the first time and chose to install Ubuntu 16.04.1 as my sole operating system.

I installed Ubuntu on my Samsung SSD drive. I also have a 1T HDD that I would like to use for all my docs, photos and other data.

Now that my computer is up and running, I can't seem to access my HDD drive for storage.

During the Ubuntu install process, I didn't build any partitions manually.

My question: How do I access my HDD Drive now?

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Thanks everyone for your help. I'm still not exactly sure how to partition my HDD drive to store files that I will be able to access with ubuntu loaded on the SSD.

Here's the SSD where I've loaded Ubuntu:

enter image description here

And here's the unallocated 1T from the HDD:

enter image description here

So how exactly should I partition my HDD now? Thanks for your patience, I'm new at this.

Pierre.Vriens
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joecitizen
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    You have to partition it, and format the partitions. Best to use gpt. Will you also install a test copy of an operating system on the HDD? I normally allocate a couple of 25GB for / (root) partitions. http://askubuntu.com/questions/743095/how-to-prepare-a-disk-on-an-efi-based-pc-for-ubuntu Best not to use NTFS but otherwise similar. http://askubuntu.com/questions/223655/windows-ubuntu-dual-boot-share-files-between-os/223670#223670 with Linux formats, you will have to set ownership & permissions. http://askubuntu.com/questions/461394/how-to-partition-ssdhdd – oldfred Dec 08 '16 at 23:03
  • You'll also want to move your swap partition from SSD to HDD. – heynnema Dec 09 '16 at 03:48
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    Sorry, a bit of newbie here. Want is the swap partition, what purpose does it serve and how would I move it? – joecitizen Dec 10 '16 at 16:03

1 Answers1

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The links provided by OldFred within the comment section under your question describe what you need to do in detail. So briefly (assuming legacy BIOS boot):

  • Open dash with Alt+F2
  • Type gparted, select the icon and press Enter

In the screen below I'm in the process of creating a new Extended partition of 95 GB which I will be using for Linux in the future:

gparted

This gives you an idea of what you will be doing without going into a lot of detail.

In your case you will be selecting /dev/sdb (the second hard drive) to setup your Linux files. On my system this has already been done so I can't show how to create from scratch but here is an example of /dev/sdb from my system:

gparted 2

Notice the top right hand corner where you select the SSD or HDD you want to work with.

If you have any questions post them as comments below and I'll update the answer accordingly.

WinEunuuchs2Unix
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  • I have a live USB disk with Ubuntu OS on it. I've read gpt is included on the Ubunutu live disk. Can I just boot from there and make the partitions, or would that require re-installing everything? – joecitizen Dec 10 '16 at 15:58
  • on your dev/sdb you have multiple partitions. Is that necessary? Basically, I just want to store my files on the HDD, so I would only need one partition, right? – joecitizen Dec 10 '16 at 16:05
  • @joecitizen You can boot from USB and make the changes to your HDD. In my case I boot from /dev/sdc which is an mSata SSD 1/2 length PCIe card in the laptop in order to access /dev/sda and /dev/sdb the two full size drives in the laptop. You can setup the partitions anyway you like, in any format you like in any size you like. However ext4 format is the most common type people use for LInux these days. – WinEunuuchs2Unix Dec 10 '16 at 17:07
  • in my question above i've posted links to screenshots of what my SSD and HDD look like in gparted. do i need to shift the linux-swap to HDD? if so how? and i've also read that some people mount the / root in the SSD and then /home in HDD with all the files. how important is this? – joecitizen Dec 10 '16 at 22:23
  • Swap depends on how much of your SSD you want to give over to it. If swap is used often then SSD performance is much faster than HDD, however at the cost of lowering SSD life say from 10 years to 7 but that's hard to measure. If swap is never or rarely used then HDD is fine. If you have lots of SSD space (like me) then I put swap there even though it's never used. When you create a partition using gparted you can specify the file system type as SWAP and it can be on SSD or HDD. For sure root (/) should be on SSD. Whether or not you put /home on SSD or HDD depends a lot on space. – WinEunuuchs2Unix Dec 10 '16 at 23:54
  • thanks for all the help. how do i mount partitions to put root (/) on the SSD and (/home) on HDD? When I use gparted, mounting isn't an option under the partition option menu for some reason. – joecitizen Dec 11 '16 at 02:43
  • gparted is used to create your partitions, when you install Ubuntu you simply point out the partitions you want to use. If Ubuntu is already installed you need to edit /etc/fstab to mount the partitions. When grub boots Ubuntu those partitions in /etc/fstab are automatically mounted and used. – WinEunuuchs2Unix Dec 11 '16 at 02:56