Mounting and Using a USB Drive on Linux – Step by Step

If you’re a Linux user, chances are you’ve plugged in a USB drive and wondered, “Now what?”. Whether it’s a flash drive, SSD, HDD, or MMC card, the process is almost the same. Below is a clean walkthrough for detecting, formatting, mounting, and even auto-mounting your drive.

Follow these steps to get it working like a pro:

1. Check if Your System Detects the Device

Plug in the USB and check if it’s recognized:

lsblk

This lists all drives and partitions. Look for something like sdx (where x is a letter).

2. Wipe and Format the Drive

Warning: This erases everything on it.

sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdx

Replace x with your drive letter.

3. Create a Partition Table

sudo fdisk /dev/sdx
  • Press g → GPT partition table
  • Press n → New partition
  • Press Enter for all defaults
  • Press w → Save and exit

4. Format the New Partition

After fdisk, you should see something like /dev/sdx1:

sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdx1

5. Create a Mount Point

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/usb

6. Mount the Drive

sudo mount /dev/sdx1 /mnt/usb

Run lsblk to confirm it’s mounted under /mnt/usb.

7. Auto-Mount on Boot

Get the UUID of your partition:

sudo blkid /dev/sdx1

Copy the UUID and open /etc/fstab:

sudo vim /etc/fstab

Add this line (replace xxxx with your UUID):

UUID=xxxx  /mnt/usb  ext4  defaults 0 2

8. Test the Setup

sudo mount -a

If no errors appear, the USB will mount automatically on boot.