USB Harddrive problems

Erasmus · 2009-01-21 15:33:32

This problem is probably due to a hole in my knowledge, rather than an actual problem with the system, but I can't find a solution either way so here we are.

I have an external HDD connected by USB to my laptop. The HDD itself has an ancient install of Debian on it (so two or three ext3 partitions and a swap partition, if I recall correctly).

Generally when I plug an external HDD into USB it appears as /dev/sdb and mounting it is simple. This time it doesn't appear in /dev/ but it does appear in /sys/block/sdb/ (which I found by accident). You apparently can't mount it from there, and, if I'm honest, my knowledge was exhausted at about the point hal didn't pick it up and automount it. I've got the dbus and hal daemons running and they work with most things, and I'm using KDE4.1

Thanks for any help.

R00KIE · 2009-01-21 21:12:47

No big ideas ..... did you try fdisk -l as root to see if it shows up, and if it does try to mount from the path stated on the output.

Erasmus · 2009-01-21 22:12:35

Tried it, it doesn't show up. Only sda shows up, sdb is nowhere to be seen.

perbh · 2009-01-22 03:08:45

dmesg | tail ??

GogglesGuy · 2009-01-22 03:53:54

You might want to check your usb cable as well. Bad cables might cause weird things to happen

Erasmus · 2009-01-22 11:34:55

perbh wrote:

dmesg | tail ??

[seb@Leo ~]$ dmesg | tail
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] 78140161 512-byte hardware sectors: (40.0 GB/37.2 GiB)
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] 78140161 512-byte hardware sectors: (40.0 GB/37.2 GiB)
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
 sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3 sdb4
sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
usb-storage: device scan complete
[seb@Leo ~]$ sudo fdisk -l
Password:

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf23bdada

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1           5       40162   83  Linux
/dev/sda2               6          71      530145   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3              72        1091     8193150   83  Linux
/dev/sda4            1092        7296    49841662+  83  Linux

That is definately it. Still not appearing in /dev/ though. Plugged it into my Debian Gnome system and it automatically mounted the / and /home/ partitions, so it's not a cable problem or any other hardware failure.

R00KIE · 2009-01-22 14:45:33

Thats strange ..... there are 4 partitions in the disk sdb1 to sdb4 ..... but it doesn't show up with fdisk ..... strange .... might be related with

[sdb] Test WP failed, assume Write Enabled

perbh · 2009-01-22 14:48:08

Obviously it finds the drive and it has 4 partitions,
so - what about:
fdisk -l /dev/sdb

and if that looks good, go right ahead:
for p in 1 2 3 4; do
if test mount /dev/sdb$p /whereever; then
echo "/dev/sdb$p is good"; umount /whereever
else echo "-- error mounting /dev/sdb$p"; fi
done

Erasmus · 2009-01-22 16:01:36

perbh wrote:

Obviously it finds the drive and it has 4 partitions,
so - what about:
fdisk -l /dev/sdb
and if that looks good, go right ahead:
for p in 1 2 3 4; do
if test mount /dev/sdb$p /whereever; then
echo "/dev/sdb$p is good"; umount /whereever
else echo "-- error mounting /dev/sdb$p"; fi
done

My whole problem is that the drive doesn't appear in /dev/, nor is it picked up by fdisk.

perbh · 2009-01-22 20:02:13

Then I'd go with 'rookie' ...
"[sdb] Test WP failed, assume Write Enabled"

Which - if you get no such message with another distro must mean:
a) if same computer - the usb-driver/udev must be different, check (in the source) where the error message comes from
b) if different computer - then your usb-controller(s) may be questionable

Arch Linux

#1 2009-01-21 15:33:32

USB Harddrive problems

#2 2009-01-21 21:12:47

Re: USB Harddrive problems

#3 2009-01-21 22:12:35

Re: USB Harddrive problems

#4 2009-01-22 03:08:45

Re: USB Harddrive problems

#5 2009-01-22 03:53:54

Re: USB Harddrive problems

#6 2009-01-22 11:34:55

Re: USB Harddrive problems

#7 2009-01-22 14:45:33

Re: USB Harddrive problems

#8 2009-01-22 14:48:08

Re: USB Harddrive problems

#9 2009-01-22 16:01:36

Re: USB Harddrive problems

#10 2009-01-22 20:02:13

Re: USB Harddrive problems

Board footer