Arch Linux

kjslag

Member

Registered: 2009-11-03

Posts: 43

external hard drive doesn't appear in /dev/sd*

My 7 month old external hard drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a … 6822136471) doesn't seem to work anymore. It doesn't appear in /dev/sd* nor 'sudo lsusb'. It used to work fine. I've tried multiple usb ports, multiple computers, and multiple OS (linux and windows). Any ideas what I could try next? Are there any tools to diagnose the problem further?

My last resort options are
1) take the drive apart and plug it into a desktop computer (probably invalidates warranty)
2) pay for data recovery (it's a personal hard drive. i'm not sure if this is overkill or expensive)

Any advice?

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,354

Re: external hard drive doesn't appear in /dev/sd*

...It doesn't appear in ... 'sudo lsusb'. It used to work fine. ...
Any advice?

Ouch.

The good news is that it might not be the drive itself.  That it does not show up in lsusb says the controller has gone Tango Uniform
When you connect the drive, are there any messages added to dmesg  ??

As to advice, check to see that your backups are good

If nothing shows up in dmesg, you will need to (a) have it fixed under warranty (and probably lose your data) or (b) pull the drive and attach it to another interface, recover the data, and then reassemble the failed drive and try to return it.

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tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: external hard drive doesn't appear in /dev/sd*

Does it work with a different PC?

R00KIE

Forum Fellow

From: Between a computer and a chair

Registered: 2008-09-14

Posts: 4,734

Re: external hard drive doesn't appear in /dev/sd*

Using a data recovery service might get a little expensive, it all depends on how important the data is and how much it will cost you to generate it again or replace it.

If the recovery job is simple as in just taking the disk out of the enclosure and copying the data to another disk then I guess it might not be too expensive. Some data recovery companies do provide a (free?) quote on how much it will cost you and others even state how much the more common data recovery tasks cost. If the data recovery company has an agreement with the disk manufacturer then the warranty will not be void and you can claim it and get a new disk.

If you plan to do it yourself be ready to make a full disk image and then copy your data out of the image (look into ddrescue and sparse disk images, works wonder if the disk is not too full), you don't know the cause of the controller failure and it might be that the hard disk is not in good shape too and will only live long enough to reliably extract all the data or do a full disk image a couple of times.

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R00KIE
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kjslag

Member

Registered: 2009-11-03

Posts: 43

Re: external hard drive doesn't appear in /dev/sd*

Thanks for the comments. I guess I'll try taking the drive apart and using ddrescue (which I've used before and is really nice) next week.

No messages added to dmesg.

The drive doesn't work on a different PC.

nxarmada

Member

Registered: 2010-10-17

Posts: 8

Re: external hard drive doesn't appear in /dev/sd*

I have this same issue, the drive works MAC OS X and Windows but not under arch.....

sudo lsusb shows nothing realting to the drive, no dev/sd*

dmesg does not show anything.