Question: When I plug a external HDD into my Rasberry Pi (running Raspbian) it automatically mounts as 

```
/media/2ad496774-3eb8-47bb-2bf5e-788f8eb89e54

```

where folder underneath it are then accessible by going 

```
/media/2ad496774-3eb8-47bb-2bf5e-788f8eb89e54/folder/

```

I'd like to be able to access these folders by going to something like: 

```
/media/storageDrive1/folder/

```

Is there a way to map the long path name to something shorter/more memorable/easier to work with? 

I'm new to Linux so I don't understand the concept of mounting things (coming from plug+play windows machines)

Answer: 
These long strings of letters and numbers are what's called a [UUID - Universally Unique Identifier](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier). So changing the `LABEL` as one commenter above mentioned most likely won't solve this particular problem. You can see the UUID for mounted devices using the `blkid` command from a terminal window. In fact you can also see the `LABEL` for each device too:

```
$ blkid
/dev/sda1: LABEL="SYSTEM_DRV" UUID="20BF9FE3BE8FC134" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda2: LABEL="Windows7_OS" UUID="5CF293BFE1121C32" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda3: LABEL="Lenovo_Recovery" UUID="B43456A123456C54" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda5: UUID="4835b90f-1234-8321-9aca-fbcf1234123f" TYPE="ext4" 
/dev/sda6: UUID="av4XVa-12DA-5Vpm-0fGR-dsUd-aTtD-fG12LB" TYPE="LVM2_member" 

```

You can create a Unix links to this directory instead, which will probably end up being the easiest thing to do here.

```
$ sudo ln -s /media/2ad496774-3eb8-47bb-2bf5e-788f8eb89e54 /media/storageDrive1

```

This link is essentially a shortcut to the physical path.

### LABEL?

On some implementations of the mounting of devices under the directory `/media`, I've seen that certain ones will actually use the `LABEL` if it's set. So you might want to still try that, but it's highly dependent on which distro of Linux you're using. The link (`ln`) method I suggested will work in all scenarios.
You can also [try this approach](http://www.megaleecher.net/Adding_External_USB_Disk_Drive_Storage_On_RasPi) which uses `fstab` to do what you need.