How to Mount Windows/USB NTFS Partition in RHEL Systems

Are you trying to access an NTFS partition or NTFS formatted USB drive on an RHEL-based operating system, and have encountered an error?

Do not worry, all will be fine once you finish reading this guide where we will show how to mount and access Windows/USB partitions formatted with NTFS file system type, on RHEL-based systems such as CentOS, Fedora, Rocky, and AlmaLinux.

The following screenshot shows an error encountered while mounting a Windows NTFS partition in Rocky Linux, an RHEL-based system developed as a replacement for CentOS.

mount: /media: unknown filesystem type 'ntfs'.
mount: /media: unknown filesystem type 'ntfs' Error
mount: /media: unknown filesystem type ‘ntfs’ Error

This guide assumes that you are logged in as a root user and will run commands with root user privileges, otherwise, use the sudo command where necessary.

How to Mount Windows NTFS Partition in Linux

To mount any NTFS-based partition in RHEL-based systems, you need to install and use a package called NTFS-3G.

What is NTFS3G

NTFS-3G is an open-source cross-platform NTFS driver that works on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. It supports mounting and accessing NTFS partitions using the FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) interface, which then enables a user to create, delete, rename, and move files, directories, hard links, streams, and much more within the mount point.

The NTFS-3G package is available in the EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) Repository. To install it, first enable the EPEL repository on your machine as follows:

----------- On RHEL-based Linux 9 Release ----------- 
# yum install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-9.noarch.rpm

----------- On RHEL-based Linux 8 Release -----------
# yum install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm

----------- On RHEL-based Linux 7 Release -----------
# yum install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm

Next, run the following yum command to install the ntfs-3g package on your system, follow any prompts on the screen to import the GPG key for signing the package:

# yum install ntfs-3g
Install NTFS-3G in Linux
Install NTFS-3G in Linux

Identify NTFS Partition

Now plug your USB drive into the computer and check for all connected block devices using the fdisk command. Your USB device should be listed in the output as highlighted in the following screenshot.

This command will also enable you to get the device name under the /dev directory. In this example, the device name is /dev/sdb and the first mountable partition is /dev/sdb1.

# fdisk -l 
Find Device Name in Linux
Find the Device Name in Linux

Alternatively, you can use the lsblk command to list all block devices connected to your computer:

# lsblk
List Linux Block Devices
List Linux Block Devices

Mount NTFS Partition in Linux

Now it’s time to mount your USB drive by creating a new directory under /media, for example, /media/myusb. Then mount the USB drive using the mount command with -t flag, which is used to specify the filesystem type, which is ntfs-3g in this case:

# mkdir -p /media/myusb
# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /media/myusb/
Mount NTFS Partition in Linux
Mount NTFS Partition in Linux

You can check if the USB drive has been mounted successfully to the defined location by running the mount command and filtering its output via the grep command as shown:

# mount | grep /dev/sdb
Confirm Mounted NTFS Partition
Confirm Mounted NTFS Partition

Next, run the ls command in the mount location to view files stored in the USB drive. The -l flag allows for a long listing of files with their permissions and size, and more:

# ls /media/myusb/
OR
# ls -l /media/myusb/
List NTFS Partition Files
List NTFS Partition Files

To mount a Windows NTFS partition at boot time, add the following line in your /etc/fstab file. Make sure to replace /dev/sdb1 and /media/myusb with the device name and mount point respectively:

/dev/sdb1 /media/myusb auto defaults 0 0

Unmount NTFS Partition in Linux

To unmount the /media/myusb mount point, use the umount command as shown.

# umount /media/myusb/

We have come to the end of this guide where we showed how to mount and access Windows NTFS partitions in RHEL systems by using the ntfs-3g driver. Share your feedback concerning this topic via the comment section below.

Hey TecMint readers,

Exciting news! Every month, our top blog commenters will have the chance to win fantastic rewards, like free Linux eBooks such as RHCE, RHCSA, LFCS, Learn Linux, and Awk, each worth $20!

Learn more about the contest and stand a chance to win by sharing your thoughts below!

Aaron Kili
Aaron Kili is a Linux and F.O.S.S enthusiast, an upcoming Linux SysAdmin, web developer, and currently a content creator for TecMint who loves working with computers and strongly believes in sharing knowledge.

Each tutorial at TecMint is created by a team of experienced Linux system administrators so that it meets our high-quality standards.

Join the TecMint Weekly Newsletter (More Than 156,129 Linux Enthusiasts Have Subscribed)
Was this article helpful? Please add a comment or buy me a coffee to show your appreciation.

18 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. Error mounting /dev/sdb1 at /run/media/client2/MR.OPTIMUS: Command-line `mount -t “ntfs” -o “uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid,uid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=0077,fmask=0177” “/dev/sdb1” “/run/media/client2/MR.OPTIMUS”‘ exited with non-zero exit status 13: $MFTMirr does not match $MFT (record 0).
    Failed to mount ‘/dev/sdb1’: Input/output error
    NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it’s a
    SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows
    then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very
    important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate
    it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g.
    /dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the ‘dmraid’ documentation
    for more details.
    How do I overcome this problem. It occurs during 2nd time to make HDD as ntfs to access through the centos 7 platform.

    Reply
  2. Hello!
    Then i power off my usb hdd and connect again name of device has been changed (from sda1 to, example, sdb1). Why this happen?
    CentOS 6.

    My english is a little.

    Reply
  3. Thanks.
    But I don’t get any such files.

    [root@localhost2 CVU_11.2.0.1.0_basu]# cd /etc/yum.repos.d
    [root@localhost2 yum.repos.d]# ls -l
    total 24
    -rw-r–r– 1 root root 954 Aug 11 2010 epel.repo
    -rw-r–r– 1 root root 1054 Aug 11 2010 epel-testing.repo
    -rw-r–r– 1 root root 561 Mar 10 2010 rhel-debuginfo.repo

    Please help.

    Reply
  4. Hi,
    Thanks for sharing such a helpful guide to mount NTFS filesystem in linux. Its so clear and easy to understand.
    I’m facing one more issue. I’ve enabled EPEL and installed NTFS3G. But not able to get fuse installed. I’m getting below error-

    [root@localhost2 etc]# yum install fuse
    Loaded plugins: rhnplugin, security
    This system is not registered with RHN.
    RHN support will be disabled.
    Setting up Install Process
    No package fuse available.
    Nothing to do

    [root@localhost2 etc]# uname -a
    Linux localhost2.localdomain2 2.6.18-194.el5 #1 SMP Tue Mar 16 21:52:39 EDT 2010 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

    I need it badly, please help.
    Thanks in advance.!

    Reply
    • You need to enable beta repo by modifying /etc/yum.repos.d/rhel-beta.repo file.

      # vi /etc/yum.repos.d/rhel-beta.repo
      

      Make sure you set enable=1 and give a try again.

      # yum search fuse
      # yum install fuse
      
      Reply
  5. Hi Ravi,

    I could successfully install ntfs-3g in CentOS 6.4 and mount NTFS partitions.

    The method that worked for me was slighly different than yours.
    I used wget to download the “.tgz” archive directly from Tuxera.com and uncompressed it. Then, I downloaded the gcc compiler to build ntfs-3g from the sources using the well known “./configure”, “make”, “make install” sequence.

    However, the NTFS partitions are still not listed as drives in CentOS GUI.
    Hence, I cannot “drag and drop” files from them to the CD/DVD burner.

    Any idea how to make NTFS partitions displayed in the GUI ?

    Regards.

    Reply
    • Dear friend ,

      can you be please help me ,, My wireless is not displaying in the net work manager applet. machin- Dell inspiron 15 3521 wireless card – atheros. OS Centos 6.2

      Reply

Got Something to Say? Join the Discussion...

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us. We appreciate your decision to leave a comment and value your contribution to the discussion. It's important to note that we moderate all comments in accordance with our comment policy to ensure a respectful and constructive conversation.

Rest assured that your email address will remain private and will not be published or shared with anyone. We prioritize the privacy and security of our users.