Configure partition table, format and auto mount disks. MBR – EXT4

Connect the External HDD: Ensure that your external HDD is connected to your Debian system.

Identify the Device: Use the lsblk or fdisk -l command to identify the device name of your external HDD. It will typically be something like /dev/sdX, where X is a letter assigned to the drive.

lsblk

Partition the Drive with MBR: Use the fdisk command to create an MBR partition on the external HDD.

sudo fdisk /dev/sdX

Once inside the fdisk program do the following:

Create the ext4 Filesystem: After creating the partition, use the mkfs.ext4 command to create an ext4 filesystem.

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdX1

Replace /dev/sdX1 with the actual partition identifier you created in the previous step.

Label the Filesystem (Optional): You can optionally label the ext4 filesystem for easier identification. Replace NEW_LABEL with the desired label for your filesystem. That can for example be the model of the hard disk or it’s purpose.

e2label /dev/sdX1 NEW_LABEL

Mount the Filesystem: Create a directory where you want to mount the hard disk and mount the filesystem.

It would be a good idea to create the folder using the same name as the label of the hard disk’s partition.

sudo mkdir /media/LABEL sudo mount /dev/sdX1 /media/LABEL

Adjust the mount point (/media/LABEL) according to your preference.

Now, your external HDD should be formatted with MBR and have an ext4 filesystem. If you want the drive to be automatically mounted on boot, you may need to add an entry to the /etc/fstab file which is show below.

Automounting disk with fstab

Identify the UUID of the Partition: Use the blkid command to identify the UUID of the partition on your external HDD. The UUID uniquely identifies the partition, and using it in /etc/fstab helps avoid issues if the disk order changes.

Replace /dev/sdX1 with the actual partition identifier.

sudo blkid /dev/sdX1

Take note of the PTUUID number without quotes. It should look something like this: “c381c2aa-044b-415a-b901-2a6a374b2591“.

Edit the /etc/fstab file: Open the /etc/fstab file in a text editor using a command like sudo nano or sudo vim. Add a new line with the following information:

UUID=your_partition_uuid /media/LABEL ext4 defaults 0 2

Replace your_partition_uuid with the UUID you obtained in the first step, and adjust the mount point (/media/LABEL) if needed.Example using nano:

sudo nano /etc/fstab

Add the line to automount the disk with default values:

UUID=c381c2aa-044b-415a-b901-2a6a374b2591 /media/LABEL ext4 defaults 0 2

Or with more specific options:

UUID=c381c2aa-044b-415a-b901-2a6a374b2591 /media/LABEL ext4 rw,relatime,nofail,errors=remount-ro 0 2

1. rw:
   • Stands for “read-write.”
   • This option allows both read and write operations on the filesystem. It specifies that the filesystem should be mounted with read and write permissions.
2. relatime:
   • This option stands for “relative atime.”
   • With relatime, the access time of files is updated only if the current access time is earlier than the modification time or the inode creation time. It’s an optimization over the traditional atime update mechanism, helping to reduce write operations to the filesystem.
3. nofail:
   • This option indicates that if the filesystem cannot be mounted, the failure should not be considered fatal to the system boot process. If the device is not present or there are issues with the filesystem, the system will continue booting without the specified filesystem being mounted.
4. errors=remount-ro:
   • Specifies the action to be taken in case of errors on the filesystem.
   • If errors are encountered, the filesystem will be remounted in read-only mode (ro). This is a safety measure to prevent further potential damage and data loss in case of filesystem errors.
5. 0 2:
   • These are the dump and pass fields, respectively.
     • The dump field (0) indicates whether the filesystem should be backed up using the dump command. A value of 0 means no automatic backup.
     • The pass field (2) is used by the fsck command to determine the order in which filesystems are checked at boot time. A value of 2 typically means the filesystem will be checked after the root filesystem.

In summary, the options in your /etc/fstab entry specify that the filesystem should be mounted with read-write permissions, use relative atime for optimization, not be considered critical for system boot (nofail), remount in read-only mode in case of errors, and be checked after the root filesystem during the boot process.

Press Ctrl + X to save, press Y to confirm changes, and press Enter to exit.

Create the Mount Point (if not already created): If you haven’t created the mount point earlier, create it using:

sudo mkdir /media/LABEL

Remember to create the folder with the name of the label of your hard drive for easy identification.

Mount All Filesystems in /etc/fstab: To mount all filesystems listed in /etc/fstab, you can use the following command:

sudo mount -a

To auto mount as a non root user

To automount a disk with specific user permissions using /etc/fstab, you can utilize the user and noauto options along with the uid, gid, and umask options.

1. Determine the UID and GID of the user you want to mount the disk as. You can find this information by running the following commands:

id -u username
id -g username

2. Determine the UUID of the disk you want to mount. You can find this information using the blkid command:

sudo blkid

3. Edit the /etc/fstab file using a text editor:

UUID=your_disk_uuid /mnt/mount_point filesystem defaults,user,noauto,uid=your_user_id,gid=your_group_id,umask=022 0 0