Help needed formatting thumb drive

[DoYouKubuntu]

Have you tried mounting them as root, from the command line?

No, I haven't. It's been so long since I mounted anything manually, and combining that with the fact that I don't know how to specify their location, I figured I'd leave well enough alone!

Another idea - from the dmesg output, I suspect they are USB 3 drives, which, in my limited experience, due to the fracturing of the USB 3 standard can be choosy about what USB ports they will work in. I suggest checking the specs of the USB ports in your laptop, and the thumb drives if possible. It's conceivable that the only USB port that will cope with them is a type C port, and, be aware not all type C to type A adapter cables are equal.

Excellent point!

Unfortunately...no. When I was ordering the laptop, I looked at its specs and noted that it's equipped with a variety of USB ports. So, with the thumb drives, I basically tried sticking them in to any port that would accept them! Same result all around.

You know, I think I'm going to return them. I'll say up front that I formatted and labelled them, but from that point on they were not usable. Last night, looking around on Amazon, I found that a lot of people have had the same type of problem with newer flash drives. I read quite a few comments that noted they worked...until they didn't, usually failing very quickly after purchase. So I think I'll return these and try a different brand, and maybe a smaller capacity. I went with 1TB because I know that allows for complete backups of everything on my hard drives, with several hundred GBs to spare. But I could make do with less.

I'm going to mark this 'solved' although the problem still exists, but hopefully getting different ones and trying again will straighten that out. Thanks all for your help and ideas.

[jglen490]

I use spinners for my backup units. Once in a while they fail, but having a rotating set set of four gives me some wiggle room. I also have discovered that quality enclosures are VERY helpful in the speed department. And since I rotate them on a routine basis, they don't get a lot of wear and tear, so even decent second hand drives will last a long time.

Just a thought.

[DoYouKubuntu]

I use spinners for my backup units.

Um...my friend Google wasn't very helpful: what exactly are "spinners"?

Once in a while they fail, but having a rotating set set of four gives me some wiggle room. I also have discovered that quality enclosures are VERY helpful in the speed department. And since I rotate them on a routine basis, they don't get a lot of wear and tear, so even decent second hand drives will last a long time.

I've used external USB hard drives, specifically Transcend, for years. They're like US Army drop-proof rated something-or-other. Meaning, they're very strong and durable. A few months ago, I retired two that were still working great. I decided that was the ideal time to retire them, i.e., while they're still known to be working. The identical replacements arrived, I plugged them in and started copying files to them. That was on my System76 Kudu Pro, running 19.10. When my new laptop arrived, the System76 Gazelle, I took one of them from the old laptop and plugged it in to the new laptop...

...and there began one of my first problems with the new computer. It did not recognize it. Not only that, but afterward, I plugged it back in to the old laptop--and now *IT* didn't recognize it either! THAT was a complete, total and utter first for me. I posted about it at the time. Since then, I've been too afraid that whatever happened to it will also happen to the other three, so I haven't attempted using any of those with the new laptop. I don't want to lose all my data!

I don't know whether it was a fluke, and that drive simply failed at that exact moment, making it look like a problem caused by the new laptop, or what. All I can say is that the two old drives were six years old and never had so much as a hiccup, so when I replaced them with identical drives, I expected YEARS of reliable use...not weeks...

[TWPonKubuntu]

First: Google is not your friend. I recommend using another search engine. ie. Startpage.com for instance.

"Spinners" is shorthand for spinning platter hard drives. as opposed to Solid State Drives: SDR

[jglen490]

Sorry about the imprecise language. Rotating platter drives, AKA HDD

So, my HDD backups are each used about once every four weeks. They don't get many hours, and being in external enclosures, don't get very hot, so military grade (also known as expensive stuff) anything is not necessary, just good quality enclosures and USB3 connections. And, as I said, if one of the HDDs fails, I just buy another and stick it in the backup rotation sequence. They don't fail often.

[DoYouKubuntu]

First: Google is not your friend. I recommend using another search engine. ie. Startpage.com for instance.

Meh...I know Google is not a great friend, but the way I see it, Google already knows everything it could possibly want to know about me ANYWAY, so who cares?

Besides, I don't do anything interesting or exciting enough online to worry about Google knowing what I do. From the point where I had to create a gmail account [in order to use my first Android phone] I kind of gave in. But not really, because I've tweaked my settings to keep them out of my business as much as possible. On my Android devices, I don't use Google's apps at all, and removing its search bar from my home screens is one of the first things I do on a new device.

I've tried other search engines over the years--anyone remember DogPile?--but they always have some drawback that bothers me, whereas Google just works.

"Spinners" is shorthand for spinning platter hard drives. as opposed to Solid State Drives: SDR

Oh. Okay! I've always liked hearing a hard drive spin up when it's working. I'm not sure I trust SSDs yet. Another 10, 20 years...we'll see.

But, as it applies to my current situation...? I want to use USB devices for backups, but my preferred method, external hard drives, well, see my posts about the Transcend drives!