My first topic and I already emphasize, I am a beginner in Linux and I would like your experiences.
I used ZorinOS 17 for testing -I'm a Windows user- and apparently everything working correctly, however, I noticed that the HDD was not being recognized by the system, only the SSD -where it even noticed the Windows folders-, and when trying to search, I absolutely couldn't find it.
This hard drive has all my files and needs and is easily viewed by Windows 11. I don't entertain the idea of formatting, as it's literally my backup.
He didn't find it because of the test use or in fact there are Linux system problems to identify HD?
by the system I assume you mean "Files" app. Have you used "Disks" app to see if that can see your HDD?
What formatting was used on the HDD?
Another Disks/Partitions tool to see if it finds your HDD would be Gparted. I think that should be included on the ZorinOS Live USB, or you can install it on your system.
Yes, files.
The HD is in NTFS format, I heard that it is recommended for Linux, am I correct?
Gparted recognizes my internal hard drive, showing it in gray.
In this situation, would the solution really be to format the hard drive to NTFS?
Can we assume your observations are all the result of "Try Zorin" from Live USB?
You say you have a SSD which is visible. Is that internal? What formatting?
You say you have a HDD (NTFS formatted) which is not seen by "Files" but is grey in Gparted. Is that correct?
I don't undertand you considering formatting HDD to NTFS if it is already formatted NTFS.
A screenshot of your Gparted screen may be helpful to aid understanding.
Is this a desktop or laptop PC?
The internal hard drive (NTFS information) is not visible in the "files", and I'm using Zorin's "experiment" mode through the SSD (where I plan to install the system in the future is in NTFS formatting). About the capture, I'll send it as soon as I can, but I explain that the gray color implies that it's as if it were in use.
NTFS is the file system used by Windows, but Linux can read this format. For an external drive used for backups, this is perfectly fine.
I'm not on Zorin OS at the moment, but here you can see two external drives plugged in, one using NTFS and another one using EXT4 – the default file system used by Zorin OS and most other Linux distributions.
I used this command, the terminal recognized my internal hard drive. Could it be that if I format my Windows system to Zorin OS 17, it will be able to recognize my internal hard drive?
My fear is that I will finish the installation and lose access to my hard drive.
Another question I have is, in the installation process it gives us the option of installing with NVIDIA and without it, what's the difference?
In that case what's happening here is that the drive is simply not mounting automatically. Why, I don't know; probably something to do with the live/experimental mode.
To "mount a drive" means making it visible to the file system at a particular location, and you can do this yourself manually as well. Although as I said, this is not needed with a regular installation of Zorin OS.
Using as an example my screenshot above, if I wanted to mount the "TOSHIBA EXT" drive the command would be:
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/zenzen/TOSHIBA_EXT
This by itself would fail if the directory "TOSHIBA_EXT" didn't yet exist. If needed, create it manually with the command below, and try again:
mkdir /media/zenzen/TOSHIBA_EXT
A few notes:
Despite the drive label containing spaces (TOSHIBA EXT) it's best to avoid them whenever possible in your file system; note that the directory that I created uses an underscore instead.
You can choose any directory at all, it doesn't really matter. But just so you know, the /media/<username>/<label> location is what the system would use by default. It would automatically create the missing directory and mount it all in one go.
If you are going to do this manually, make sure to quadruple check the device name. In my example, the device name is /dev/sdb1 as per the screenshot above. But this can change over time between reboots and other various factors.
Yes, this would work. But just to be clear, the drive is being recognized, just not mounted automatically.
As long as you select the right drive when you install Zorin OS, it should be fine. Only the selected drive would be used for the installation, unless you mess with the advanced options.
I know nothing about graphic cards, drivers and things of that sort, so I'll leave this one for someone else
It's weird that it's not detecting the filesystem type. I'm guessing that is formatted using some special flags that only Windows can read. I'm not sure.
But, in any case, did you try to mount it following the steps that I explained in my previous post? It looks like the device you should be aiming for is /dev/sda3. This doesn't change anything on the drive so there's no harm in trying.
By the way, I don't think it's a good idea to have the backup drive attached to the same computer. If the computer stops working for whatever reason, this drive will not be accessible; not easily, anyway. And in case of something more serious, like water damage or something, the drive itself may also be damaged.
Keep in mind that all drives fail eventually, it's a matter of when, not if. I would suggest using an external drive as an additional layer of defense against this type of event.
Incidentally, if you agree with this, you may have a backup copy of your data so that you can safely format your drives in case you need to. I'm not suggesting you need to do this, at least not yet, but it's something to keep in mind.
I tried to do the assembly, but it didn't work, or maybe, I'm not doing it correctly.
Forgive me, I am a beginner and I am doing my best to follow your teachings.
I confess that I'm tired, I've tried everything. The formatting of the hard drive is in LDM and the people I consulted with each other recognize it.
If I format the hard drive, will Zorin recognize it?
I'm also not familiar with this LDM file system, it looks like it's Microsoft's version of Linux's LVM (Logical Volume Manager). In that case, the only solution that I would consider is to format the drive using another file system that is readable by Linux.
Follow @zabadabadoo's advice and make sure you have all your files properly secured in another drive before doing this, as the files in that drive would be lost afterwards.
As for which file system to use, NTFS is probably the safe choice since it's readable by all major operating systems. On the other hand, if this drive is not going to be shared with any other non-Linux computer – I assume this is the case given it's an internal drive – you can use EXT4 which is the native file system used by Zorin OS.
