I have several Windows 10 boxes and just converted one to Ubuntu, but have not been able to access the shared
disks either way. After searching and trying several "this is how to do it" that didn't work, I am asking here for help.

Any takers to help a Ubuntu NOOB?

In the past I've used a tool called "SAMBA". It can take a bit of setting up as the instructions used to be somewhat vague, but once running it does a reasonable job.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Define “shared disk”.

Do you have a NAS?
Do you have a data drive in a windows machine?
A data drive in the Ubuntu machine?

If you’re trying to access a windows drive over the network, you need to mount the drive to your linux installation. You can do this on a one time basis with a customized mount command. Or you can have it auto-mount at boot by editing your /etc/fstab file with the appropriate parameters.

If the drive you’re trying to access is internal to the Ubuntu system, you still have to mount it, but Ubuntu may be able to see it in the File Manger GUI by clicking “other locations”. If you want it to auto-mount you’ll need to also edit the /etc/fstab file.

Let us know so more specific details about what exactly you’re trying to do so we can better help you.

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Seti@Home classic workunits: 29,492 CPU time: 134,419 hours

@ Ian&Steve C.

Do you have a NAS?
Do you have a data drive in a windows machine?
A data drive in the Ubuntu machine?

I have a Drobo with 32TB direct attached to one Win10 computer, and large disks (8TB) installed in
other Win10 computers that contain data to be accessed as needed. The Ubuntu machine contains
4 internal disk with more than 20TB of data to be accessed occasionally.

Or you can have it [disks] auto-mount at boot by editing your /etc/fstab file with the appropriate parameters.

This sounds like what I need so they are available whenever the computer is running, which I hope is 24/7.

... Ubuntu may be able to see it in the File Manger GUI by clicking “other locations”.

Yes, Ubuntu sees the internal disks, but not from Win10.

In general, I am looking to run multiple boxes with Win10 and Ubuntu as seamlessly as possible. I
can't leave Ubuntu running for long since I can't access its internal drives from Win10.

you will need to create a network share for each drive you want to share. then you will have to mount each share to your linux machine.

give the first part of this guide a shot.

https://www.howtogeek.com/176471/how-to-share-files-between-windows-and-linux/

a better question, is why do you need all of these systems to access each other's drives?

seems much easier to just move all of your data to a centralized location into a NAS. then have all the systems access that.

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Seti@Home classic workunits: 29,492 CPU time: 134,419 hours

@Ian&Steve C.

you will need to create a network share for each drive you want to share. then you will have to mount each share to your linux machine.

No easy way to share within a workgroup like Windows does. Well, perhaps next Ubuntu release. I will give this a try.

a better question, is why do you need all of these systems to access each other's drives?

seems much easier to just move all of your data to a centralized location into a NAS. then have all the systems access that.

I agree that would be a better solution. The answer, though is partly history and partly financial. Several years ago, I was running
only a single computer and supporting BOINC. Didn't have much data to store then. Then I bought another computer (blame CPU
envy!) to support BOINC, and added another data disk. Then another ... and another ... and each one got bigger disks as I downloaded
more and more data (not related to BOINC) Now I have 15 data disk, 4 of which ARE in a NAS, and the others just as I built the
boxes. To buy a NAS to support those disks would be expensive, and Windows shared the disks effortlessly, so why bother? Now,
of course, sharing between Ubuntu and Windows is a ... mess. Oh well! Time to go read your link. Thanks for it!

Have a proper look at SAMBA - it was designed to allow access to material hosted on a x-nix machine by a windows machine and visa-versa. Most "real" NAS devices have SAMBA available as one of their access /sharing tools which makes life easier.
I agree with Ian that centralising your data storage onto a NAS (or NAS cluster) would make administering, accessing and tracking it all much simpler than having it scattered over a number of different locations (and from what I read the no-server versions of Windows 10 don't play ball very well in heterogeneous environments)

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

you can get used enterprise gear rather inexpensively. a used server with 32GB ram, decent CPUs and a chassis that will hold 24 disks would probably run you ~$400 then pick up an UnRaid Pro license for $129 (or $89 for Plus, but you'll be limited to using 12 drives). Personally I like and use FreeNAS. It's free, very powerful, and great for data integrity, but not so beginner friendly. The learning curve can be steep and the hardware requirements are a bit higher than with UnRaid. I think for your use-case (JBOD), unraid fits your needs.

get yourself a 10TB external drive for temporary storage. fill it up with data from 3 or 4 of your drives.
take those drives out and start an UnRaid "array" (3 drives + parity)
move the data back from the external to the new array.
rinse and repeat with the rest of your drives, expanding the unraid array along the way.
once you get close to adding the last few disks you might consider making another one a second parity drive.

unraid will use the largest disk as a parity drive.

that's just my recommendation. it's not THAT expensive to get something up and running. but how much is your data worth to you?

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Seti@Home classic workunits: 29,492 CPU time: 134,419 hours

I use Samba and have all my hosts in the same workgroup. I can access my lone Windows laptop just fine and see all my shares on my Linux hosts. I can see the shares on the laptop too.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

...and to add to what Keith has said - Samba is FREE, it will use your existing hardware, run on your existing mix of operating systems. Also most (all?) fairly recent Linux distros come with it, if not installed and running available to install and run.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Once you get Samba installed and the service running, just opening File Manager in Linux and clicking the +Other Locations shows all your shares on your network, Windows and Linux hosts. Even you haven't set up a share yet on a particular machine, if you know the ip address you can just input the address or URL into the "Connect to server" field using the smb:// or ftp:// or nfs:// prefix for whatever protocol you want and click Connect and start browsing directories if allowed. Easy peasy.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

@ Ian&Steve C.

you can get used enterprise gear rather inexpensively. a used server with 32GB ram, decent CPUs and a chassis
that will hold 24 disks would probably run you ~$400 then pick up an UnRaid Pro license for $129 (or $89 for Plus, but
you'll be limited to using 12 drives).

Ahh, life is so much easier in the USA. I looked on Ebay, the cheapest I found was a UXS Server SAN 4U NAS Direct
Attached Storage 24 Bay 32 Core FREENAS ZFS UNRAID for $1,100 plus $80 shipping to Seattle, where I will be on a trip
later. Is there a better/cheaper source? This would still require computer-computer sharing since it is actually DAS.

get yourself a 10TB external drive for temporary storage. fill it up with data from 3 or 4 of your drives.

I have 7x8TB disks, 2x5TB, plus a few smaller ones. 10TB wouldn't do it. If I change, it will be a pain.

Drobo uses one disk (optional two disks) for parity. This is where I store the data I really REALLY don't want to lose, and
a copy on another local box/disk, and one copy in the cloud. [house burned down]
Data I don't want to lose, I just have a local copy on a second box. [head crash]
Data I can re-create/download with moderate effort has no backup. [accidental deletion/corruption]

I have read/heard that having a very large array as a JBOD is excruciating to rebuild if a disk fails. How does FreeNAS
or UnRaid handle that situation? When my Drobo rebuilt the array when I had only 3x8TB disks in it, it needed 22 hours.

@ Keith Myers

Once you get Samba installed and the service running, just opening File Manager in Linux and clicking
the +Other Locations shows all your shares on your network, Windows and Linux hosts. Even you haven't set
up a share yet on a particular machine, if you know the ip address you can just input the address or URL into
the "Connect to server" field using the smb:// or ftp:// or nfs:// prefix for whatever protocol you want and
click Connect and start browsing directories if allowed. Easy peasy.

Well, if it actually worked this way, I wouldn't be here asking for help.

From Ubuntu, I can now see my -some- of my Windows boxes, but can not access them. The message box is
"Unable to access location"
"Failed to retrieve share list from server: connection timed out"
From Windows Network, I don't see Ubuntu.

"... input the address or URL into the "Connect to server" field ..."

I don't know where the field is into which I should put the IP address or URL. Win10 or Ubuntu? Application?

What information can I provide to help diagnose my problem? And is there a screen "snip" type
utility for Ubuntu so I won't fat-finger something erroneously?

Also, most of the access is programmatic, not browsing.

Darrell, something like this is what I was talking about:

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F174042242667

And the 10TB Drive wasn’t to store ALL your data in one go. It’s to store some of your data temporarily while you move some disks into a centralized system.

On my FreeNAS system I care more about the data so it’s all mirrored in a RAID10-like setup. 8 disks, 4x pairs of mirrors striped together. If I have a drive fail there is no rebuilding, it just copies the data from one drive to the other. And it auto expands to larger disks if I replace them one by one.

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Seti@Home classic workunits: 29,492 CPU time: 134,419 hours

@ Ian&Steve C.

Darrell, something like this is what I was talking about:

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F174042242667

Ah. Not a NAS dedicated box, but a fullup server. No wonder I couldn't find it! Didn't think to try "server".

It looks good, so I sent my son a request to have him buy one and hold it in Seattle until I visit there next year. Shipping to
Vietnam is $300. I can bring it back as checked luggage in a securely packed shipping carton for "free".

Thanks again.

I don't know where the field is into which I should put the IP address or URL. Win10 or Ubuntu? Application?

The information is in the quoted field of mine in your post. File Manager from Linux

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

@ Keith Myers

The information is in the quoted field of mine in your post. File Manager from Linux

OK. The field showed "Enter server address...", and I didn't notice the label on the far left bottom.

Anyway, I tried this and got the same error messages as before that I put in the reply to you. No
happiness yet. Even though Win10 merrily and happily shares among themselves, it seems
not willing to connect with Ubuntu.

Time to search and try, try again.

You should be able to get the address of your Ubuntu system from its network information page - hopefully it is in the same address range as your Windows 10 computers (192.x.y.z or 10.x.y.z)

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

@ Keith Myers

The information is in the quoted field of mine in your post. File Manager from Linux

OK. The field showed "Enter server address...", and I didn't notice the label on the far left bottom.

Anyway, I tried this and got the same error messages as before that I put in the reply to you. No
happiness yet. Even though Win10 merrily and happily shares among themselves, it seems
not willing to connect with Ubuntu.

Time to search and try, try again.

Have you installed Samba yet? If the error is a user permission issue, then you need to tell Samba your username for your Windows hosts.
This is from my saved tech notes to myself.

Must always add a Samba username to a system for the shares to work. This creates a entry in the smbusers file in /etc/samba

smbpasswd -a keith

Or you can add the Windows usernames directly in the smb.conf file or just allow guests to browse. Make sure you change the workgroup entry in the file to match your Windows workgroup. The default is workgroup = WORKGROUP which is usually the default name in Windows unless you modify it yourself.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)