Mounted external HDD shows disk space but does not show files

[thr33finger]

Hey all,

So here is my issue. I was working yesterday to get my external hdd mounted so i could access my music files. Eventually I got it to work and could view and edit all files. I was still unable to get audio which was my project for the day.(total newbie) however when I opened up the external hdd mounted in media there is nothing in the drive now. When I right-click and go to properties it shows the disk space has been used and there is 7gb of used space but it shows 0 files/ 0 subfolders. Not overly sure what you guys need to help me out but I'll be a little pre-emptive and post my fstab file for you guys to take a look at.


# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# -- This file has been automaticly generated by ntfs-config --
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>

proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sdb1 :
UUID=51de437b-e0b0-45bd-a1ab-7459d60d0a85 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# Entry for /dev/sdb5 :
UUID=3752658a-85d5-4bd6-b9d2-e6c0f833df47 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec 0 0
/dev/scd1 /media/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec 0 0
/dev/sda1 /media/sda1 ntfs-3g defaults,locale=en_CA.UTF-8 0 0
/dev/sdc1 /media/sdc1 ntfs-3g defaults,locale=en_CA.UTF-8 0 0

[thr33finger]

Re: Mounted external HDD shows disk space but does not show files

So after trying to install the nvidia drivers (which I am still unsuccessful at) the files and folders are now there and accessible. lol I just dont get it.

[dibl]

Re: Mounted external HDD shows disk space but does not show files

Welcome!

I think you might be suffering from "noob trying to do 15 things at once" syndrome. LOL

You wanna get that Nvidia card working? Then maybe we could move on to enabling NTFS partitions.

What is the Nvidia card model?

[raijinsetsu]

Re: Mounted external HDD shows disk space but does not show files

Normally, you do not put USB drives in fstab... Unless your install is borked, the OS should do the following:
1) Detect USB insertion
2) Create a device in /dev

The it's up to KDE(or Gnome) to detect the new drive, mount it, and make an icon for it.

It's a bad idea to combine dynamic and static methods for doing this...

[thr33finger]

Re: Mounted external HDD shows disk space but does not show files

Hey, Sorry, yes definitly trying to do 15 things at once. I have the Nvidia card working fine though, as well as compiz(love the eye candy but the more I use it im finding it hard to justify the necessity or usability with it lol.) but i am having trouble still with the files going missing. Sorry I am kind of scatter brained.

So what is happening is this, pretty much every time I reboot the computer i go to media/sdc1/ into my music folder and it says
Could not mount device error reported no such medium. And then sometimes if I click it again shortly after or reboot the computer, it works fine the files are there and everything works peachy. Lately though it never does work. Gives me the same error code everytime. but when I click it after, it goes into the folder and there are no files/folders there to select. I agree with the previous statement that I now realize it was a bad idea setting it up as static drive because yes it is external and yes it does get turned off regularly and sometimes I forget to turn it back on when I turn on the computer.

What I have done so far is this: used the diskmount manager, which seemed to work fine until i rebooted and then it would not work at all. passed that nothing. thats when it started just working after then second click.

[raijinsetsu]

Re: Mounted external HDD shows disk space but does not show files

Ahh... Each time you boot, your USB drive could potentially be connected to a different interface in DEV. It depends on how HotPlug/ColdPlug do their thing.
My suggestion is: mount using the UUID of the drive, or it's volume name. I'm not in front of my linux computer ATM, so I can't give you an example...

[thr33finger]

Re: Mounted external HDD shows disk space but does not show files

raijin,

ok, So I know that i named the volume Iomega so what would the command to mount this be like? I have created (a while ago) a folder under /mnt/Iomega/ this is where I would like to mount it. something like: "mount sdc1 /mnt/iomega" ?

[dibl]

Re: Mounted external HDD shows disk space but does not show files

Here's good guidance on dealing with USB hard drives:

http://penguin.ch/dokuwiki/doku.php/...stab?s=tacking

Also, you might want to review the 3 mounting methods:

- mount by device ID (this is the normal/traditional Linux method)
- mount by UUID (*buntu's default method)
- mount by Label (this seems to be what you are looking for wrt that Iomega drive)

So, using "mount by label", you could do the following (and I'm assuming a FAT32 filesystem):

1. Run GParted, and make certain that you have set the label for that drive/partition as IOMEGA.
2. Open Konsole and

sudo mkdir /media/IOMGEGA

3. Still in Konsole,

sudo mount -t vfat Label=IOMEGA /media/IOMEGA

If you want it to automount (i.e. leave it connected to your computer) then you could add a line in the /etc/fstab file as follows:

Label=IOMEGA vfat /media/IOMEGA auto,defaults,exec 0 2

[thr33finger]

Re: Mounted external HDD shows disk space but does not show files

dibl,
The drive is an NTFS drive, so I followed your instructions in the documentation section about usb ntfs drives. I got it to work fine except everytime I reboot it is unmounted. i assume I have to add a line to fstab to automount the ntfs drive, but have no idea what that line would be.

[thr33finger]

Re: Mounted external HDD shows disk space but does not show files

ok,
So I got it to work with some fishing around. Added the following line to fstab

/dev/sdc1 /media/xxx ntfs-3g usres,defaults,umask=000 0 0

it has fixed my problem so far. Please advise me if this is going to cause any issues in the future? Also if I have this set up to automount and I turn my computer on without turning on the external hdd would whit cause a problem? or will it just mount as soon as i turn it on?

[dibl]

Re: Mounted external HDD shows disk space but does not show files

That looks right to me. I do the same thing with an 8GB thumb drive that I have -- I just leave it plugged in to the home system most of the time, but if I need to carry it to the office I can do so.

No, if you don't turn on the USB drive, or it's not present on the computer, the only thing that will happen is that there will be a "mount failed" boot error message that says it doesn't exist. But everything else will be mounted same as it is now. Or so goes my prediction ...