How to Automatically Mount a Secondary Hard Drive on Startup in Ubuntu

When you install a brand new secondary hard drive or SSD into your Ubuntu desktop to store games, media, or backups, you might notice a frustrating quirk: the drive does not automatically appear in your file manager when you boot the computer. By default, Ubuntu only mounts the primary system drive during startup. To access your secondary drive, you must manually open the file manager and click on it every single time you restart your PC.

If you have applications configured to run at startup that rely on data stored on that secondary drive (like a Plex media server or a Steam game library), they will fail to load because the drive technically “does not exist” until you manually click it. To fix this, you must instruct Ubuntu to mount the drive automatically during the boot process.

Using the Disks Utility

While you can achieve this by manually editing complex system configuration files in the terminal (specifically the /etc/fstab file), Ubuntu provides a much safer, graphical tool called “Disks” that handles the configuration for you.

1. Press the Super key (the Windows key) on your keyboard to open the Activities overview.
2. Type Disks in the search bar and press Enter to launch the Gnome Disks utility.
3. Look at the left-hand sidebar of the Disks application. This column lists every physical storage device connected to your computer.
4. Click on your secondary hard drive. Be absolutely certain you have selected the correct drive, and not your primary Ubuntu system drive.
5. In the main panel on the right, you will see a visual representation of the partitions on that drive. Click on the main partition block (it will usually take up the entire width of the graphic).
6. Just below the partition graphic, look for a small icon that looks like two gears (Additional partition options) and click it.
7. From the dropdown menu, select Edit Mount Options.

Configuring the Mount Settings

By default, the mount options are controlled by a master switch that relies on Ubuntu’s default behaviour.

1. At the very top of the “Mount Options” window, toggle the User Session Defaults switch to the Off position. This unlocks the settings below it.
2. Ensure the box next to Mount at system startup is checked.
3. Ensure the box next to Show in user interface is also checked (so the drive still appears in your file manager sidebar).
4. Do not alter the “Mount Point” or “Identify As” fields unless you have a specific technical reason to do so. The default paths generated by the Disks utility are perfectly safe for standard use.
5. Click the OK button at the bottom of the window.
6. Ubuntu will prompt you to enter your administrator password to confirm these system-level changes. Type your password and click Authenticate.

You can now safely close the Disks utility. The next time you reboot your computer, Ubuntu will read the new instructions and automatically mount the secondary drive before you even log in, ensuring all your files and background applications are instantly available.