Some time ago they wrote to us about the impossibility of being able to use ExFAT devices in Linux, although it is not common to get drives formatted in this format, all distros should be able to handle them by default, in case your distro is not one of the lucky ones and you have not been able to use your device with this tutorial we hope that now you can do it.
What is ExFAT?
exFAT It is a light file system, which was created with the purpose of being used in flash drives since it is a lighter format than NTFS, natively this format is compatible with all current operating systems, but in some distros it does not lift automatically the device.
One of the disadvantages of ExFAT is that it does not have as many security measures as NTFS, but if it exceeds the limitations of the famous FAT32, however, the main use of ExFAT is to prepare multimedia units that will later be played on devices such as televisions, video consoles. , phones, players among others.
ExFAT allows files of any size and partitions without limitations, so it is ready for large disks as well as external devices with small capacities.
How to use ExFAT drives in Linux?
Sometimes your distro recognizes the device but prevents access to the documents stored on it, regardless of what your problem is, the solution is the same. We simply have to install exFat with the following command:
sudo apt install exfat-fuse exfat-utils
After this we can simply use our device correctly. In some cases the problem persists, for this we must create the multimedia folder with the following command:
sudo mkdir /media/exfats
Next we must mount our device in the corresponding directory with the following command:
sudo mount -t exfat /dev/sdb1 /media/exfats
In case you want to remove the device we simply execute the following command:
sudo umount /dev/sdb1
With these simple but powerful steps we will be able to use any device with ExFAT format without any problem.
Very good post has been very useful, always continue like this, I would be very grateful if you could help me with a little doubt, I have Ubuntu installed on my desktop PC, and by necessity I need to install Windows, they suggested partitioning the disk and installing, but I don't know how to regain access to the Windows partition Thanks
Update the grub
$sudo update-grub2
Although years ago we went from grub to grub2, $ sudo update-grub would be equivalent and works for grub2 as well.
On the other hand I wonder, I have not done it for years, if it would not be necessary to install this new configuration with $ sudo grub-install / dev / sda, does update-grub2 already contain this last step? Because I don't see the grub2-install command.
Great article, thank you very much for doing this job.
Personally I always use this file system. But it is true that in Linux it gives some problems.
I have Ubuntu 20.04
After doing everything you indicate:
#sudo apt install exfat-fuse exfat-utils
#sudo mkdir / media / exfats
#sudo mount -t exfat / dev / sdb1 / media / exfats
I get this message:
FUSE exfat 1.3.0
ERROR: failed to open '/ dev / sdb1': No such file or directory.
I have 2 2Tb hard drives that I cannot use because their file system is in exfat
Can you help me?