[arch-general] how to mount external hdd

[Leonid Grinberg]

Hi Preston,

Basically, you should think of mounting a file system as placing it
under some "root" in your larger file system. In this case, /dev/sdXY
can be thought of as a representation of the file system you want to
mount (the one on the external HD). You can place it anywhere you
want, and that will be its "root" in your larger file
system. Typically, people do something like /media/disk, but it really
can be anything. So

$ sudo mount /dev/sdXY /media/disk

works, but so does

$ sudo mount /dev/sdXY /monkeys/are/awesome/

provided that you had first created a directory called "awesome"
inside a directory called "are" inside a directory called "monkeys" at
/, your root point.

As far as the "#identify" goes -- I actually think that it doesn't do
anything. In BASH (the shell you are probably using), the pound sign
denotes a comment, which means that everything before it and the end
of the line is ignored. So

$ a-random-command # lions are pretty cool too

just runs "a-random-command". I think the poster put "#identify" there
just so you know what you are doing -- it's not actually necessary.

Hope this helps.

--
Leonid Grinberg