Arch Linux

robrene

Member

Registered: 2009-04-16

Posts: 168

Please help me find out what's wrong with my external drive

I bought a 500GB external harddrive a while ago. I usde LUKS to create one big encrypted ext3 partition on it. Seeing as the key was saved in my gnome-keyring and I use HAL for mounting external media, everything worked automatically and all was good. For quite a while now I've been unable to mount my drive, for no apparent reason. I stick it in, the drives LED lights up and I hear the disk spinning up, but it doesn't mount. I can see the drive in `lsusb` and in `hal-device`, but it just won't mount! I even tried mounting it manually using `cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdb1 mydrive`, but cryptsetup just hangs itself and that's it.

I don't know where to go from here, how to figure out where the error lies and how to fix it. I would be very happy if you guys could give me some tips on what to do next. Thanks

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lilsirecho

Veteran

Registered: 2003-10-24

Posts: 5,000

Re: Please help me find out what's wrong with my external drive

Perhaps there is a limit to the size of an ext3 partition in mounting a USB external drive?

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Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

lilsirecho

Veteran

Registered: 2003-10-24

Posts: 5,000

Re: Please help me find out what's wrong with my external drive

Perhaps the following will aid in troubleshooting:

cd /dev; ls

sudo fdisk -l |less

df

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Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

robrene

Member

Registered: 2009-04-16

Posts: 168

Re: Please help me find out what's wrong with my external drive

Perhaps there is a limit to the size of an ext3 partition in mounting a USB external drive?

That can't be it, it worked fine for a long time. It's just that I haven't used the drive for a week or two and ever since I am not able to mount it anymore. I'm guessing something changed due to some update recently that made this happen.

Also, `fdisk -l` seems to be able to find my drive and its partition. 'sdb' and 'sdb1' also appear in under /dev. The drive is definately attached to my system, it's just that I can't mount it with hal or through the conventional methods.

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robrene

Member

Registered: 2009-04-16

Posts: 168

Re: Please help me find out what's wrong with my external drive

Update:
I just tried mounting the drive from a Ubuntu Live session, and it worked fine. The drive is not broken, it's definately my arch system that just doesn't want to mount it.

Also, I've been able to mount the drive using `cryptsetup` and `mount` if the drive was already hooked up to the system prior to booting. If I attach the drive while the system is already running, it keeps spinning, I guess that's why I wasn't able to access it with `cryptsetup` before. Still, I'd like the drive to mount with HAL...

Last edited by robrene (2009-09-03 15:18:26)

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