Home / ubuntu / Questions / 1316411
In Process
James Bradbury
Asked: 2021-02-15 08:31:20 +0800 CST

How can I auto-skip a certain disk on boot up?

  • 772

I'm running dual boot Windows 10 and Ubuntu. I have several disks including a WD SSD which I only for Windows (NTFS) and don't need to mount it in Ubuntu.

However, since installing this new disk, every time I boot Ubuntu it spends several minutes checking the disk before finally giving me the Gnome/Ubuntu log in screen. I'd like to continue check the other disks, but skip this one, as it's Windows' responsibility.

I have tried removing/commenting it from fstab, but that doesn't make any difference. Is there a way to automatically skip, rather than having to press Ctrl+C every time?

This is what my fstab currently looks like:

# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=d4ae91d8-28db-476f-95f6-27d6cabbb816 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /boot was on /dev/sda5 during installation
#UUID=edb1d7c4-7f64-494b-970a-30e19e551a99 /boot           ext4    defaults        0       2
# /raptor was on /dev/sdb2 during installation
UUID=7583d83a-c588-474b-8523-3d501d2e8413 /raptor         ext4    defaults        0       2
# /win_C was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=6E4EABC64EAB8605 /win_C          ntfs    defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0       0
# /win_d was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=EA9CDD939CDD5AA1 /win_d          ntfs    defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0       0
# /win_e was on /dev/sdc1 during installation
UUID=7A4E15745CE2076E /win_e          ntfs    defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0       0
# /win_f was on /dev/sdd1 during installation
UUID=A8DC8E26DC8DEF3E /win_f          ntfs    defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0       0
# swap was on /dev/sdb3 during installation
UUID=674fa812-da28-43c1-b9de-d805551f88a6 none            swap    sw              0       0
# Manually added WD SSD 500GB (mostly used for windows)
UUID=7C5E67055E66B792 none   ntfs defaults,noauto 0  0

# Keep /tmp in RAM (faster and less SSD wear)
# http://www.howtogeek.com/62761/how-to-tweak-your-ssd-in-ubuntu-for-better-performance/
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0
# NAS on zotac
192.168.50.186:/nas/shared /zotac-shared nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr,nfsvers=3

UUID=edb1d7c4-7f64-494b-970a-30e19e551a99  /boot       ext4    defaults      0       2
dual-boot

2 Answers

  1. The simplest solution would be to use the noauto flag in your /etc/fstab file. This will prevent the OS from mounting a given partition completely.

    For example:

    /dev/sda3    none    ntfs-3g    defaults,noauto    0    0

    or:

    UUID=b72e8406-34e8-4e38-a422-e4ab6e35e6b8 none    ntfs-3g    defaults,noauto    0    0

    If you choose to do this by UUID, you can list the values for each mount point in your system with sudo blkid, which will return something like:

    /dev/nvme0n1p3: UUID="b72e8406-34e8-4e38-a422-e4ab6e35e6b8" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="4b9f203e-de2c-4cc0-a9a6-2ac423b1b0e9"
/dev/nvme0n1p2: UUID="b33696cc-f2db-4dd4-9a63-15028cf5afc4" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="cd2a90a1-5a6b-4468-a4da-0a2f7c2a8f54"
/dev/nvme0n1p1: UUID="D3F2-9195" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="4e505bb1-c12b-4c71-afdf-42ac9a2f721b"
/dev/mmcblk0p1: UUID="dd5dffcf-9e3b-43eb-82a2-36137fc249be" TYPE="crypto_LUKS" PARTUUID="7688e21d-c1d3-4f02-95ac-5e816e2c1e05"

    Note: I've removed all the squashfs records from the list just to keep it clean.

    This should give you a faster boot time while also ensuring the Windows-only partitions are not visible in the Ubuntu UI.

    • 1

  2. Comment the line with the disk that you wanted to skip in /etc/fstab using

    sudo nano /etc/fstab

    Then find the line that you want to comment and put an asterisk(*) at the beginning.

    • 0