How to enable exFAT for Ubuntu 20.04

Solution 1:

I had the same issue after having the fuse drivers installed in an earlier version then upgrading to 20.04 and removing the fuse drivers. cat /proc/filesystems | grep fat does not show exfat.

I re-installed the kernel module included with 20.04 using: sudo modprobe -v exfat

cat /proc/filesystems | grep fat now shows exfat. Then to make it survive a reboot, I added exfat to /etc/modules-load.d/modules.conf

Solution 2:

Here's something you can try. Since the GNU/Linux 5.4.0-1008-raspi aarch64 kernel doesn't seem to have the support for exFAT built in, you can add it. From https://www.techrepublic.com/article/try-out-this-new-linux-exfat-kernel-module-for-improved-performance/ you can follow the steps to download and install the exFAT support for the kernel.

Install git if it is not installed:

sudo apt install git

You may also want the build-essential package:

sudo apt install build-essential

Next, download the exfat-linux:

git clone https://github.com/arter97/exfat-linux

Enter the newly created folder which should be cd exfat-linux

Then run the following to install the kernel module and make it active:

make
sudo make install
sudo modprobe exfat

Now when you run cat /proc/filesystems you should see exfat at the bottom of the list.

Solution 3:

The new exFAT kernel driver was in Staging in 5.4 and fully released in 5.7.

See: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/11/linux-5-4-kernel-release-features https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/06/linux-5-7-kernel-features