External Hard Drive

[toad]

Re: External Hard Drive

This might seem a silly suggestion, but most external USB drive complaints are down to the device not getting enough juice. If it has its own power supply plug it in if you haven't already done so and try again.

Also try

lsusb

once it is plugged in. BTW, how is the disk formated?

[Dave B]

Re: External Hard Drive

The drive is new and unused so don't know if it is formatted, It is 'light up and vibrating' so assume it is getting power which is through the usb connection the following result is from running lusb
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 045e:008a Microsoft Corp. Wireless Keyboard and Mouse
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 04a9:2206 Canon, Inc. CanoScan N650U/N656U
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 050d:705c Belkin Components
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 1058:0702 Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
It looks like it can 'see' the drive even tho my computer won't list it!

[toad]

Re: External Hard Drive

Well, you may want to format it. Best way is to download gparted:

sudo apt-get install gparted

Once it is installed open it up and select your usb drive. What does it say? Is it partitioned?

[askrieger]

Re: External Hard Drive

Uhr, IIRC my WD external drive came formated for vfat.

[Dave B]

Re: External Hard Drive

Have installed gparted. Unfortunately my computer has 'lost' the external drive (lsusb) and still 'lost after rebooting so can't check for formatting!! Have just tried again(24th) Still no recognition! I am beginning to wonder if the WD ext drive is faulty!

[sithlord48]

Re: External Hard Drive

could be i would sugest trying it on another computer.

[Dave B]

Re: External Hard Drive

My computer 'found ' the ext drive and I 'mounted' it. Tried running gparted - didn't find it. So still :Pdon't know if it is formatted! Manged to read the drive but needs? windows to operate it!! Now find it is formatted with fat32 gparted worked THIS TIME !! Have rerun dmesg|tail with following result

[ 134.684548] SoftMAC: Open Authentication completed with 00:12:cf:02:58:ab
[ 141.825872] SoftMAC: Open Authentication completed with 00:12:cf:02:58:ab
[ 145.828966] SoftMAC: Open Authentication completed with 00:12:cf:02:58:ab
[ 149.470591] usb 3-1: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2
[ 152.039245] SoftMAC: Open Authentication completed with 00:12:cf:02:58:ab
[ 152.047193] SoftMAC: Open Authentication completed with 00:12:cf:02:58:ab
[ 534.179237] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_RETRY
[ 534.179242] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 76463
[ 542.732675] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_RETRY
[ 542.732679] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 77999
What does this mean!

[Dave B]

Re: External Hard Drive

How can I reformat this drive?( reiserfs?) tried gparted doesnt give me the option it is showing a 'lock' symbol

[LinuxIsInnovation]

Re: External Hard Drive

To reformat, right click and select "Unmount" first. Then select Format to -> [filesystem]

[Dave B]

Re: External Hard Drive

Many thanks .Tried and it worked! used reiserfs . can't seem to transfer data to it! Why?

[dibl]

Re: External Hard Drive

Did you mount it, after it was formatted?

[Dave B]

Re: External Hard Drive

It remounted itself should it be for me to use it?

[dibl]

Re: External Hard Drive

It remounted itself should it be for me to use it?

Hmmmmm. I'm not so sure your reiserfs scheme is going to work on a hotplug USB device.

AFAIK, you cannot just plug in a reiserfs (or JFS or XFS) formatted hard drive and have it mount itself. I dunno, maybe you can, I haven't tried it lately. You can format a USB stick ext3 and it will hotplug.

As a further experiment (since you're deep into one already ), try this:

1. Make a mountpoint --

sudo mkdir /media/testit

2. Determine the Linux device ID for that drive, when it is connected:

sudo fdisk -lu

Let's say it shows up as /dev/sdd1.

3. Mount it with the conventional mount command:

sudo mount -t reiserfs /dev/sdd1 /media/testit

Now open your file manager and try to save something on it. If it refuses due to lack of permission, open Konqueror in super-user mode with Alt-F2 "kdesudo konqueror", open "media" and get to that drive, right-click it and choose Properties>Permissions, and in the lower left corner change the owner and group to yourself, and check the "apply to all subdirectories" box, and then "apply".

Now I think you'll have a working drive.

But, reiserfs really is not a good filesystem choice any more -- it hasn't been under active development for over a year and is going to be increasingly unreliable under newer kernels. :P

[Dave B]

Re: External Hard Drive

Still having problems. What format system do you recommend I use?
Have reformatted with ext3 and mounted it as suggested. Still can't save data to it. Checked in konqueror. only the owner - root - can access and write to it!! Am I missing something obvious?

[sithlord48]

Re: External Hard Drive

If it refuses due to lack of permission, open Konqueror in super-user mode with Alt-F2 "kdesudo konqueror", open "media" and get to that drive, right-click it and choose Properties>Permissions, and in the lower left corner change the owner and group to yourself, and check the "apply to all subdirectories" box, and then "apply".

Now I think you'll have a working drive.