I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

TZIKADA · 2024-11-22 09:36:11

I am unable to mount a certain external Hard Drive. It shows up on lsblk and fdisk but it shows an error whenever I try to mount it (on Plasma KDE and Dolphin it doesn't even appear). I tried to search for similar threads but found none, and neither did I find a solution in the wiki.

The hard drive:
SEAGATE Expansion Portable Drive
Model: SRD0NF1

I'm sorry in advance for any difficulties that might appear in communication. I am new to Linux and have yet to understand how it operates.

Last edited by TZIKADA (2024-11-27 13:13:47)

gromit · 2024-11-22 10:15:17

So which error does it show and what are the outputs of lsblk and fdisk? We don't want to guess

TZIKADA · 2024-11-22 10:27:45

lsblk output:

[Dan@Potato ~]$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 0 1.8T 0 disk /run/mount
└─sda1 8:1 0 16M 0 part
nvme0n1 259:0 0 238.5G 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 1G 0 part /boot/EFI
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 16G 0 part [SWAP]
└─nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 221.5G 0 part /

fdisk output:

[Dan@Potato ~]$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 238.47 GiB, 256060514304 bytes, 500118192 sectors
Disk model: HFM256GDJTNG-8310A
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 4B80E437-DA20-4A4B-8F3F-ADFE762C4270

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1 2048 2099199 2097152 1G Linux filesystem
/dev/nvme0n1p2 2099200 35653631 33554432 16G Linux filesystem
/dev/nvme0n1p3 35653632 500117503 464463872 221.5G Linux filesystem

Disk /dev/sda: 1.82 TiB, 2000398933504 bytes, 3907029167 sectors
Disk model: Expansion
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 5BFF93EF-A510-4B73-B59F-10DCC75889A1

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 34 32767 32734 16M Microsoft reserved

Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.

mount error output:

[Dan@Potato ~]$ mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
mount: /mnt: must be superuser to use mount.
dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.

In case dmesg is needed I copied the last few passages as well:

[14891.300657] usb 1-2: USB disconnect, device number 6
[14891.344644] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Synchronizing SCSI cache
[14891.598067] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Synchronize Cache(10) failed: Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_OK
[14892.734681] usb 1-2: new high-speed USB device number 7 using xhci_hcd
[14892.932910] usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=0bc2, idProduct=231a, bcdDevice= 7.07
[14892.932919] usb 1-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[14892.932922] usb 1-2: Product: Expansion
[14892.932925] usb 1-2: Manufacturer: Seagate
[14892.932927] usb 1-2: SerialNumber: NA84CLPE
[14892.957897] scsi host1: uas
[14892.968764] scsi 1:0:0:0: Direct-Access Seagate Expansion 0707 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[14895.293405] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] 3907029167 512-byte logical blocks: (2.00 TB/1.82 TiB)
[14895.293413] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] 4096-byte physical blocks
[14895.293697] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[14895.293700] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 53 00 00 08
[14895.294278] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[14895.294431] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Preferred minimum I/O size 4096 bytes
[14895.294433] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Optimal transfer size 33553920 bytes not a multiple of preferred minimum block size (4096 bytes)
[14895.372616] sda: sda1
[14895.372864] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
[15877.956445] EXT4-fs (sda1): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem
[15877.956914] EXT4-fs (sda1): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem
[15877.957254] EXT4-fs (sda1): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem
[15877.957592] FAT-fs (sda1): bogus number of reserved sectors
[15877.957595] FAT-fs (sda1): Can't find a valid FAT filesystem
[15877.957879] ntfs3: sda1: Primary boot signature is not NTFS.
[15877.957892] ntfs3: sda1: try to read out of volume at offset 0xffba00

V1del · 2024-11-22 10:38:20

That's a 16MB partition with microsoft reserved data (Windows creates that when installing Windows there's nothing on the disk, and doesn't contain anything you can actively use), should there be? If not you'd need to properly partition and create a file system for it.

Also please wrap command outputs in [code][/code] tags in the future.

Last edited by V1del (2024-11-22 10:40:12)

TZIKADA · 2024-11-22 11:52:49

It's supposed to be filled with files, not empty. This hard drive was originally owned by someone else, when I had Windows I formatted it and then used it as a backup before installing Linux so I don't know how it was partitioned. It worked fine overall, I had to use the Windows Troubleshooter (on a separate PC) from time to time but this morning it stopped appearing on Windows as well.

obelisk · 2024-11-22 12:19:13

You write your error is:

Dan@Potato ~]$ mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
mount: /mnt: must be superuser to use mount.
       dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.

Note, when mounting from bash terminal, become root ( with su) or use sudo before your mount command.

However, I don't know if this 16MB partition is possible to mount, I even don't know which filesystem type that is. I cannot check it, because I have no MS windows any more.
You can check that with lsblk -f or with the GUI application gparted.

V1del · 2024-11-22 12:20:33

Well partition wise you don't have a data partition right now, if these outputs are to be believed. Is this an exclosure that you can take the actual disk out of? Maybe something there went bad.

seth · 2024-11-22 13:00:50

sudo file -s /dev/sda

Maybe it's formatted as a superfloppy and the partition data is just residual noise?
(Starting on sector 34 is odd? Even by MS standards?)

TZIKADA · 2024-11-22 13:12:36

The output after mounting with sudo was:

[Dan@Potato ~]$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
[sudo] password for Dan: 
mount: /mnt: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.
       dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.
[Dan@Potato ~]$ sudo mount /dev/sda /mnt
mount: /mnt: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.
       dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.

The output for lsblk -f was:

[Dan@Potato ~]$ lsblk -f
NAME        FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda                                                                                
└─sda1                                                                             
nvme0n1                                                                            
├─nvme0n1p1 vfat   FAT32       3C7A-2656                            1021.8M     0% /boot/EFI
├─nvme0n1p2 swap   1           8ea9b4e0-99de-4110-b0c3-35863af4666b                [SWAP]
└─nvme0n1p3 ext4   1.0         ee8739f2-9ea2-46f4-9d15-9b6484ff4782  149.8G    26% /

There is no exclosure where I can take the disk out of.

The output for sudo file -s /dev/sda was:

[Dan@Potato ~]$ sudo file -s /dev/sda
[sudo] password for Dan: 
/dev/sda: DOS/MBR boot sector MS-MBR Windows 7 english at offset 0x163 "Invalid partition table" at offset 0x17b "Error loading operating system" at offset 0x19a "Missing operating system"; partition 1 : ID=0xee, start-CHS (0x0,0,2), end-CHS (0x20,254,63), startsector 1, 4294967295 sectors

seth wrote:

(Starting on sector 34 is odd? Even by MS standards?)

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that.

seth · 2024-11-22 13:16:11

The first partition starts at sector 64, which is not what you'd expect - 2048 or 63 would be "normal".
There's no filesystem at the start either, just an MBR w/ a bogus partition table.
You can try whether testdisk can find partitions, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/File_r … d_PhotoRec

cryptearth · 2024-11-22 13:34:34

startsector 34 does make senese for the m$ reserved
according to wikipedia it's supposed to mimic the post mbr gap on traditional mbr dos formatted drives which is said some programs used to store data into to survive reinstall of or even reformatting - although I don't know any siftware from that era that ever used that feature any modern software
sector 34 is the first free sector after the gpt tables which starts at offset 1 (first block after mbr) and is 32 blocks in size - so from 1 to 33

anyway - no matter what you (OP) did when you saved your files on windows - something went horrible wrong
if you're lucky you just somehow killed the partition table (unlikely as for exactly THAT reason there's a copy of it kept at the end of the drive) - if you're unlucky you wrote your backup into the nothingness of nirvana and lost them

TZIKADA · 2024-11-22 14:10:22

It seems that using testdisk bears the risk of removing the data from my disk, and that would be dangerous because I need this data. Could you give more in-depth instructions on what to do with testdisk to find partitions without deleting my files by accident?

seth · 2024-11-22 22:48:44

It seems that using testdisk bears the risk of removing the data from my disk

No, not if you don't write anything there and also, right now, there's no data on that disk.

Could you give more in-depth instructions on what to do with testdisk to find partitions

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

without deleting my files by accident?

Pay attention to what you do and also the smart approach here is to clone the disk into an image and operate on that.

because I need this data

It worked fine overall, I had to use the Windows Troubleshooter (on a separate PC) from time to time but this morning it stopped appearing on Windows as well.

There's a good chance you've used the filesystem in parallel from multiple systems w/o closing it and ultimately shred it this way.
If you're lucky, testdisk can just restore the partitions.
If you're less lucky, testdisk/photorec can at least recover files or fragments thereof.
If you used bitlocker, you're SOL

TZIKADA · 2024-11-26 06:18:53

I'm sorry for the late response. I had to find another hard drive with enough space to clone the disk. I'm currently cloning it, but I noticed that the hard drive I had used used NTFS, while the filesystem on my main partition is ext4. Will this cause any future problems? Or maybe it caused this one?

seth · 2024-11-26 07:59:30

If you're cloning it onto the drive and not into an image you'll completely nuke any present filesystem and all data on that drive.
If you're cloning the disk into an image, the target filesystem doesn't really matter (btrfs images on btrfs tend to cause trouble but that's no concern here)

TZIKADA · 2024-11-26 09:37:50

I'm unsure whether I'm copying it into an image or the drive itself, this is the command I used and the output (still in progress):

[Dan@Potato ~]$ sudo ddrescue --force --no-scrape /dev/sda /dev/sdb rescue.map
GNU ddrescue 1.28
Press Ctrl-C to interrupt
     ipos:  388943 MB, non-trimmed:        0 B,  current rate:  39583 kB/s
     opos:  388943 MB, non-scraped:        0 B,  average rate:  26433 kB/s
non-tried:    1611 GB,  bad-sector:        0 B,    error rate:       0 B/s
  rescued:  388943 MB,   bad areas:        0,        run time:  4h  5m 14s
pct rescued:   19.44%, read errors:        0,  remaining time:     11h 38m
                              time since last successful read:          0s
Copying non-tried blocks... Pass 1 (forwards)

Either way, I'm using an empty drive for the cloning so the deletion of data on it won't be a problem.

TZIKADA · 2024-11-27 13:12:58

I'm back, and so is my Hard Drive. It seems like everything is in place (except for a few new files starting with RECOVER_, but they seem to do nothing. I guess that it's a leftover from when I tried to use ddrescue). Thank you very much for your help.

Arch Linux

#1 2024-11-22 09:36:11

I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

#2 2024-11-22 10:15:17

Re: I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

#3 2024-11-22 10:27:45

Re: I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

#4 2024-11-22 10:38:20

Re: I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

#5 2024-11-22 11:52:49

Re: I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

#6 2024-11-22 12:19:13

Re: I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

#7 2024-11-22 12:20:33

Re: I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

#8 2024-11-22 13:00:50

Re: I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

#9 2024-11-22 13:12:36

Re: I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

#10 2024-11-22 13:16:11

Re: I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

#11 2024-11-22 13:34:34

Re: I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

#12 2024-11-22 14:10:22

Re: I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

#13 2024-11-22 22:48:44

Re: I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

#14 2024-11-26 06:18:53

Re: I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

#15 2024-11-26 07:59:30

Re: I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

#16 2024-11-26 09:37:50

Re: I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

#17 2024-11-27 13:12:58

Re: I've got a problem with an external Hard Drive [EDIT: Solved]

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