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nullbit
Contributor
Contributor

Mounting a USB HDD with NTFS

Hi - I am trying to mount a USB (NTFS formatted) hard disk from the console in order to move a backup from the HDD to the ESX server.

I create a mount point with

mkdir /mnt/usb

To check the right partition

fdisk –-l /dev/sdc

gives an /IO error on the USB hard disk so I try this

mount /dev/sdc /mnt/usb -t nfs

Then service console says "unable to mount not in host:dir format"

Question: How to I mount the NTFS formatted USB hard disk?

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2 Replies
Cooldude09
Commander
Commander

I believe the command should be mount -t ntfs /dev/sdc /mnt/usb

Regards

Anil

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Texiwill
Leadership
Leadership

Hello,

THis will most likely not work. You can get it to mount but ESX has an issue where reads or writes will be cause errors over time. If this happens to you then connect the USB device to your management workstation and use VMware Converter to import the VM. THat is a safer way and it will always work.

If you do successfully copy the VM from the USB, or it appears to successfully copy, make sure by using a hashing tool such as md5sum to verify that its correct.


Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009
====
Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.
Blue Gears and SearchVMware Pro Blogs -- Top Virtualization Security Links -- Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
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