Arch Linux

Lightman

Member

Registered: 2014-09-22

Posts: 14

[Solved] External HDDs not mounting

I have a stack of hard disks which I had used in the past for archiving. These are internal disk drives and I use a converter to turn them into external USB drives. The disks are a mixture of mechanical and solid state and all have has Linux file systems on them in the past. When I try to mount them, nothing happens.

So, I tried a

lsblk

to see what was going on.

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda      8:0    0  1.9T  0 disk
├─sda1   8:1    0  260M  0 part /boot
├─sda2   8:2    0   16G  0 part [SWAP]
└─sda3   8:3    0  1.8T  0 part /
sdb      8:16   0    0B  0 disk

My disk is sdb. It's 0 bytes in size? Now, I know for fact there should be a ext4 partition in there. So I check the journal for any obvious errors.

Feb 13 16:24:57 EliteBook kernel: usb 1-2.4: new high-speed USB device number 75 using xhci_hcd
Feb 13 16:24:57 EliteBook kernel: usb 1-2.4: New USB device found, idVendor=152d, idProduct=2338, bcdDevice= 1.00
Feb 13 16:24:57 EliteBook kernel: usb 1-2.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=5
Feb 13 16:24:57 EliteBook kernel: usb 1-2.4: Product: USB to ATA/ATAPI Bridge
Feb 13 16:24:57 EliteBook kernel: usb 1-2.4: Manufacturer: JMicron
Feb 13 16:24:57 EliteBook kernel: usb 1-2.4: SerialNumber: 727000512222
Feb 13 16:24:57 EliteBook kernel: usb-storage 1-2.4:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
Feb 13 16:24:57 EliteBook kernel: scsi host3: usb-storage 1-2.4:1.0
Feb 13 16:24:58 EliteBook kernel: scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Seagate  BarraCuda Q1 SSD N010 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 CCS

The kernel picks up both the ATA/USB converter and then the Seagate BarraCude attached to it. Everything should be fine. Thinking that I had lost or removed the partition, I ran fdisk to have a look.

fdisk /dev/sdb

Returns....

fdisk: cannot open /dev/sdb: Invalid argument

I can accept that I might have a broken disk, but all five? With the exact same problem?

A more likely explanation is that I am missing something here. I am wondering if anyone out there can suggest where I am going wrong...

Thanks,

L.

Last edited by Lightman (2025-02-17 22:51:05)

cryptearth

Member

Registered: 2024-02-03

Posts: 2,094

Re: [Solved] External HDDs not mounting

if multiple drives show errors its likely the converter - try the disks in a regular pc

xerxes_

Member

Registered: 2018-04-29

Posts: 1,053

Re: [Solved] External HDDs not mounting

Post output of commands:

file -s /dev/sdb{,1,2,3,4}
fdisk -l /dev/sdb
lsusb
lsusb -t
hdparm -iI /dev/sdb
smartclt -x /dev/sdb
journalctl -b    # after you plug disk to usb 

Lightman

Member

Registered: 2014-09-22

Posts: 14

Re: [Solved] External HDDs not mounting

@cryptearth A fair point. Just because the kernel sees it, it does not mean that it's going to work. As a sideline I'll try and find another PC to try this on.

@xerxes_ With my

 lsblk 

looking like this....

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda      8:0    0  1.9T  0 disk
├─sda1   8:1    0  260M  0 part /boot
├─sda2   8:2    0   16G  0 part [SWAP]
└─sda3   8:3    0  1.8T  0 part /
sdb      8:16   0    0B  0 disk

Here are the results of the queries...

file -s /dev/sdb{,1,2,3,4}
/dev/sdb:  no read permission
/dev/sdb1: cannot open `/dev/sdb1' (No such file or directory)
/dev/sdb2: cannot open `/dev/sdb2' (No such file or directory)
/dev/sdb3: cannot open `/dev/sdb3' (No such file or directory)
/dev/sdb4: cannot open `/dev/sdb4' (No such file or directory)

sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb
fdisk: cannot open /dev/sdb: Invalid argument

lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 14cd:8601 Super Top 4-Port hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 138a:0092 Validity Sensors, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 25a7:fa67 Areson Technology Corp 2.4G Receiver
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 05c8:080b Cheng Uei Precision Industry Co., Ltd (Foxlink) HP HD Camera
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 05c8:0396 Cheng Uei Precision Industry Co., Ltd (Foxlink) HP IR Camera
Bus 001 Device 007: ID 8087:0a2b Intel Corp. Bluetooth wireless interface
Bus 001 Device 008: ID 152d:2338 JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp. JM20337 Hi-Speed USB to SATA & PATA Combo Bridge
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub

 lsusb -t
/:  Bus 001.Port 001: Dev 001, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/12p, 480M
    |__ Port 001: Dev 002, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/4p, 480M
        |__ Port 002: Dev 004, If 0, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
        |__ Port 002: Dev 004, If 1, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
    |__ Port 002: Dev 008, If 0, Class=Mass Storage, Driver=usb-storage, 480M
    |__ Port 006: Dev 003, If 0, Class=Vendor Specific Class, Driver=[none], 12M
    |__ Port 007: Dev 005, If 0, Class=Video, Driver=uvcvideo, 480M
    |__ Port 007: Dev 005, If 1, Class=Video, Driver=uvcvideo, 480M
    |__ Port 008: Dev 006, If 0, Class=Video, Driver=uvcvideo, 480M
    |__ Port 008: Dev 006, If 1, Class=Video, Driver=uvcvideo, 480M
    |__ Port 009: Dev 007, If 0, Class=Wireless, Driver=btusb, 12M
    |__ Port 009: Dev 007, If 1, Class=Wireless, Driver=btusb, 12M
/:  Bus 002.Port 001: Dev 001, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/6p, 5000M

sudo hdparm -iI /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
APT: No JMicron device connected: No such file or directory
/dev/sdb: No such device

sudo smartctl -x /dev/sdb
smartctl 7.4 2023-08-01 r5530 [x86_64-linux-6.13.2-arch1-1] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-23, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

Smartctl open device: /dev/sdb [USB JMicron] failed: No device connected

Feb 13 21:32:50 EliteBook kernel: usb 1-2: new high-speed USB device number 8 using xhci_hcd
Feb 13 21:32:50 EliteBook kernel: usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=152d, idProduct=2338, bcdDevice= 1.00
Feb 13 21:32:50 EliteBook kernel: usb 1-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=5
Feb 13 21:32:50 EliteBook kernel: usb 1-2: Product: USB to ATA/ATAPI Bridge
Feb 13 21:32:50 EliteBook kernel: usb 1-2: Manufacturer: JMicron
Feb 13 21:32:50 EliteBook kernel: usb 1-2: SerialNumber: 152D203380B6
Feb 13 21:32:50 EliteBook kernel: usb-storage 1-2:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
Feb 13 21:32:50 EliteBook kernel: scsi host3: usb-storage 1-2:1.0
Feb 13 21:32:50 EliteBook kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
Feb 13 21:32:50 EliteBook kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver uas
Feb 13 21:32:51 EliteBook kernel: scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access                                    PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 CCS
Feb 13 21:32:51 EliteBook kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Media removed, stopped polling
Feb 13 21:32:51 EliteBook kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] 0 512-byte logical blocks: (0 B/0 B)
Feb 13 21:32:51 EliteBook kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] 0-byte physical blocks
Feb 13 21:32:51 EliteBook kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
Feb 13 21:32:51 EliteBook kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Asking for cache data failed
Feb 13 21:32:51 EliteBook kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Feb 13 21:32:51 EliteBook kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk

For the journal results I assume that you are only interested in the stuff related to USB drive. Happy to post the whole shebang, but it's large.

L.

xerxes_

Member

Registered: 2018-04-29

Posts: 1,053

Re: [Solved] External HDDs not mounting

I was thinking about command: 'sudo file -s /dev/sdb{,1,2,3,4}' , through disk looks dead for me.

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,094

Re: [Solved] External HDDs not mounting

if multiple drives show errors its likely the converter - try the disks in a regular pc

Seems actually more likely.

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

Lightman

Member

Registered: 2014-09-22

Posts: 14

Re: [Solved] External HDDs not mounting

It seems that cryptearth's instincts were correct.

Having played with this for a few days I found that the problem was intermittent. I got one of the drives to work one evening, but then the next day, I was back to the original error. I bought a new ATA/USB converter and the problem went away.

L.

cryptearth

Member

Registered: 2024-02-03

Posts: 2,094

Re: [Solved] External HDDs not mounting

cryptearth's instincts

well, this wasn't based on instinct but rather on logic, math and experience:
having one drive showing issues while others work fine raises the odds it's the drive
but having all drives fail the same hints to something else but the drives
to exclude the drives from this equation just test them with another system via a different connection - if the error goes away it can't be the drives

another option would be driver related to usb mass storage incompatible with the connector used and how it presents the drive to the system - I'm not quite sure but from other topics it seems there're several options a mass storage can be presented to the system - and depending on this different drivers come to use

this comes down to pretty much any cheap computer stuff is designed for and tested with windows only - and even if linux is listed as compatible for "cheap" stuff like a usb-to-sata connector this should be taken with a grain of salt even from known brands which often just flip no-name stuff by relabeling - or maybe its even straight up counterfeit