Ubuntu Second Hard Drive Shows as Read Only

Many computers these days come with two hard drives, one SSD for fast boot speeds, and one that tin can exist used for storage. My Dell G5 gaming laptop is a great example with a 128GB NAND SSD and a 1TB SSD. When building out a Linux installation I have a few options. Selection 1: Follow the steps and install Ubuntu on ane SSD hard drive for quick kicking times and better speed operation when opening files or moving information. Then mounting the second drive and copying files to it when I desire to backup files or need to move files off the commencement drive. Or, Option 2: install Ubuntu on an older difficult drive with more storage but slower start upwards speeds and utilise the 128GB as a small mountain point.

However, as nearly Linux users are aware, solid state drives are much faster, and files, folders, and drives on a Linux system all have mountain points that tin exist setup with ease.

In this commodity we'll go over how to install Ubuntu Linux with separate /root and /abode directories on two split up drives – with root folder on the SSD and home binder on the 1TB hard drive. This allows me to leverage the boot times and speed of the 128GB SSD and nevertheless have plenty of space to install steam games or big applications.

This guide can too exist used for other use cases as well. An instance would be old or cheaper laptops that don't take hard drives with high RPM spinning SSDs. If your computer is a chip on the older side (and has an SD carte du jour slot) merely you desire to utilize faster boot times, you tin can go out and buy an SD carte and install the /root sectionalisation onto that for quick kicking times, and the /home segmentation on the chief drive for storage. This guide, like Linux, tin can be used for many other use cases too.

Prerequisites

• Latest Ubuntu ISO Image
• Etcher USB imaging tool
• USB storage drive with at least 4GB

Making a bootable USB disk

In this guide we will starting time by downloading the latest version of Ubuntu Linux, our distro of choice. You tin can choose other distros, but the images and steps may vary. The Ubuntu version at the time of this guide is 20.04.1. Once you have the ISO file downloaded you tin can then download the Etcher USB imaging tool . I take found this to be the quickest and most straightforward like shooting fish in a barrel-to-employ tool for creating bootable USB images on any operating organization.

Once Etcher is install you can chop-chop choose "Select Image" and notice the Ubuntu ISO file you just downloaded and select it. Insert your USB bulldoze and Etcher should auto detect if it its the just USB drive connected to your machine. From there you lot can just click "Flash" button and Etcher will handle the rest of the disk creation process. Once completed you can safely remove the usb and use this to install Ubuntu on your figurer with dual hard drives.

Setting upwards BIOS, configuring the boot order

To kicking into Ubuntu you'll accept to configure the BIOS on your computer. You lot may need to change the boot order to betoken to USB then that when you kick up your computer side by side time information technology boots into the Ubuntu live USB. To become into the BIOS, reboot with the USB in, and press the correct key (for Dell computers you tin can printing F12). Discover where the option is to enable booting from USB and enable it.

If your PC does not support booting from USB, burn the Ubuntu iso image to a DVD. and modify the kicking order to kicking from CD/DVD commencement. Once we finish the installation yous should change the boot order to kick into the SSD hard bulldoze.

How to install Ubuntu with two hard drives

When Ubuntu kickoff loads, the welcome screen appears with ii options. Select the "Install Ubuntu" button.

Then choose your language (English) to keep.

On the adjacent page the installation will ask almost updates and other software. These options can exist skipped if need exist. They don't bear upon the this guide but can be helpful with specific audio codecs and drivers needed for your machine.

Afterwards choosing or selecting both boxes on the "Preparing to install Ubuntu" folio, it will exist time to select the installation type. There are many. Nonetheless, with this tutorial the option required is the custom ane. To get to the custom installation page, select the "something else" box, then click continue.

This next step volition point you lot to the Installation type option.

It volition prove any and all disks that tin install Ubuntu. If two hard drives are bachelor, they volition show up here. If an SD card is plugged in, it will also bear witness upwards.

Sectionalisation Setup for Root / dir

Select the hard drive that you plan to use for the root file system, in this example it volition exist the 128GB SSD. If there is already a segmentation table on it, the editor volition show partitions. Delete all of them, using the tool. If the drive isn't formatted and has no partitions, select the drive, and then click "new partition table." Do this for all drives so that they both have partition tables. These steps take options for formatting the difficult drives as well, which should be done.

Now that both drives accept partition tables (and partitions deleted), the configuration can begin. Select the free space under bulldoze one, so click the plus sign push button to create a new sectionalisation. This will bring up the "Create segmentation window."

Boot Bulldoze UEFI setup

With my Dell G5-5587 laptop I am using UEFI mode so with this root drive I will be creating a boot drive and select "/boot" as the mount point for this partition as well.

Bandy Storage

If you require Swap storage, create another partition on the bulldoze before making the partition used for root "/". This can be done by clicking the "+" (plus) button, inbound the desired size (1024 for 1GB, 2048 for 2GB), and selecting "bandy area" in the drop-down.

Root Drive setup

Once you have those selections setup (swap bulldoze is optional) y'all can use the rest of the drive for the root partition. Become to the "Mount Betoken" drop-downwardly menu. Select / every bit the mount signal, then the OK button to confirm the settings.

Division Setup for Home /domicile dir

For the second drive select /home as the mountain point. This will allows your habitation folder to be prepare on the 1TB hard bulldoze. You volition be able to install Steam and download games, or download files and documents from the internet and take information technology go to your downloads folder without having to worry about setting upwardly different drive or pointing to a new folder. You have 1TB of infinite to play effectually with.

Create the home partition using the same steps as higher up. Apply all the available free infinite left for the home partition size. The segmentation settings should look like this:

•  Size = All remaining free infinite
•  Blazon for the new partition = Primary
•  Location for the new segmentation = Beginning
•  Utilise as = EXT4 journaling file organization
•  Mount point = /home

With both drives ready, select the right drive the boot loader volition get to, so click the "install now" push to beginning the installation process.

Finishing Steps

The installation process from here is the standard installation. Select a fourth dimension zone, create a username, estimator host name, create a countersign. In one case completed, you're all set. Y'all tin can remove the USB thumb drive and reboot your machine when prompted.

Determination

The best matter well-nigh Linux is its versatility and how configurable it is. Nearly operating systems don't give you all the options that Linux does. Whether you're reading to learn how to install Ubuntu or just desire to larn something about Linux, I'yard hoping this did both of those for y'all.

crispouressee1946.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/installing-ubuntu-two-hard-drives

Share this post