Auto mount Windows partition on startup

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Continuing the discussion from Manjaro 20.1 - Windows partition mount issue:

I think my issue is similar. only I am unsure how to make the necessary updates to to /etc/fstab. I can see it in nano. I want to be careful here.

To be clear I am using a shortcut on my desktop to run a Windows game in wine. It works fine after I go into dolphin and re-mount the windows drive each time. I just want it to mount automatically.

After reading several threads like this I have an idea of what to do, I know I need to add something like:

dev/sda1 /home/abhi/Data ntfs-3g auto,rw,defaults,uid=1000,gid=1000,umask=022,utf8 0 0

But I am not sure how to adjust it for my system. Or where exactly to put the script.

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Have a look at:

lsblk --fs

there you see which device would be the windows partition…

  1. Exchange /dev/sda1 with the correct one, but I would rather suggest to label the partition, like that:
sudo ntfslabel /dev/sdXY "windows"

then you can use instead of /dev/sda1, this LABEL=windows (you can also use the UUID)

  1. Create folder:
sudo mkdir -pv /media/windows
  1. Add this to the file /etc/fstab 
LABEL=windows /media/windows ntfs-3g defaults,noauto,x-systemd.automount,x-systemd.idle-timeout=30min,windows_names,uid=1000,gid=1000,umask=0022,fmask=0022 0 0
  1. Mount it:
sudo mount /media/windows

It will be mounted automatically on every boot when you access the folder and unmounted after 30min of idle.

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Ok so I got most of it done, but when I tried to add the label I got this:
sudo ntfslabel /dev/nvme0n1p3 “windows”
Windows is hibernated, refused to mount.
Failed to mount ‘/dev/nvme0n1p3’: Operation not permitted
The NTFS partition is hibernated. Please resume Windows and turned it
off properly, so mounting could be done safely.

I already logged into windows and turned fast start off in the settings. Also hibernate was unchecked, I checked (lol).

No idea why it would think windows is in hibernate, or why it would be.

Also I shut down fully every time I log out of windows because I hardly ever log in.

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As a side note,since you are using KDE,you can also use the built-in automatic mount a removable device on login

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In FSTAB use the UUID as this is something that will not change and is reliable.

UUID=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx         /path/to/mount/point file-system-type options...
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You can also use Gnome Disks to set mount point.

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You must disable Windows functions such as hibernation, hybrid sleep and fast startup.

If you fail to disable those services - Linux will not mount the device.

Create a file using below snippet - paste it into the terminal

sudo tee -a /etc/systemd/system/data-windows.mount > /dev/null <<EOT
[Unit]
Description=My Windows Partition
[Mount]
What=/dev/disk/by-uuid/$(lsblk -no UUID /dev/sda1)
Where=/data/windows
Type=auto
Options=rw,noatime
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOT

start and enable the mount

sudo systemctl enable --now data-windows.mount

Now your windows partition will be available at the path /data/windows

What the first part did was to construct a mount unit - then use tee to write it to the correct location. The UUID is inserted as the result of a command which lists the UUID of the partition in question.

More info on the concept of mount units

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So far this seems to have worked. Thanks. I want to learn more about fstab and the command line stuff, but I am not quite there yet.

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