After installing Ubuntu 24.04, my secondary hard drive (which worked fine on my previous operating system) wouldn't open. When I clicked on it in the file manager, I received an error like:
Failed to mount [Drive Name]
Error mounting /dev/sdb2 at /media/[username]/[drive]: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb2, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.
This indicated that Ubuntu couldn't mount the drive properly. I decided to use the Disks program to troubleshoot and fix the issue.
Here step by step what I did to solve the problem.
1. Opened the Disks Program
Search for Disks in the Ubuntu application menu
and launch it. Alternatively, you can open it by pressing
Alt + F2, typing gnome-disks, and
pressing Enter.
2. Located the Problematic Drive
In the Disks program, find the list of all storage devices connected to the computer. Select the hard drive that not mounted from the left-hand panel.
3. Checked the File System
Under the Volumes section, check the file system of the drive. In my case, the drive was formatted as NTFS, which is a common file system for Windows. I noticed that the file system might not have been properly recognized or mounted by Ubuntu.
4. Mounted the Drive Manually
Click the Play button (▶) under the Volumes section to manually mount the drive. However, this didn't work, and I received an error message. This suggested that there might be an issue with the file system or the drive itself.
5. Configured Automatic Mounting at Startup
To ensure the drive would mount automatically every time I booted into Ubuntu, I configured it in the Disks program:
- Click the Gear icon (⚙) again and selected Edit Mount Options.
- In the window that appeared, toggle off User Session Defaults to enable custom settings.
- Check Show in user interface to make the drive visible in the file manager.
- Leave the other options as default and click OK.
6. Reloading the Systemd Daemon
Open terminal and type systemctl daemon-reload to
make systemd recognize the changes. This ensures systemd loads the
updated service configuration.
7. Open the File Manager
After restarting the systemd daemon, open the file manager and check if the drive is now mounted and accessible.