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**oshunluvr** · Mar 07, 2025, 02:09 PM

sudo fsck -f /dev/sdb

So here you're trying to check the whole drive without a partition table. The output from the other two commands tells you the drive contains a NTFS file system, not an EXT2,3,4 file system.

I'm a bit confused about what exactly you're trying to do. The thread is titled "...unable to mount..." but you provide no information about how you tried to mount or what errors you received. It would be better to start at the beginning with the mount attempts and the problems rather than jumping right into file system checking. There's any number of reason a file system might not mount that do not require a file system check. For example, NTFS is not a Linux file system so extra packages have to be installed before they can be mounted

Since you're using Kubuntu, you should be able to mount the file systems with KDE Partition Manager or Dolphin. If those don't work, then post your console mount commands and the error output from that.

**boxcorner** · Mar 08, 2025, 11:02 AM

Many thanks for your reply.
What I meant by unable to mount is this:
when I plug in the USB connector the drive appears in the Disks & Devices list,
which is invoked by clicking on the icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
When I click on the Mount and Open button, nothing happens.
When I click on the Mount and Open button for other drives, they mount and open.
When I click on the drive in the list of devices in Dolphin, the following error message is displayed near the top of the window:
An error occurred while accessing 'WHITE EXT', the system responded: The requested operation has failed: Error mounting /dev/sdb1 at /media/ron/WHITE EXT: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error
When I did a search I came across this:
https://phoenixnap.com/kb/fsck-command-linux
Which led me to believe that I should check the file system using fsck
Sorry if I shouldn't have done that.
I have recently changed from using version 20.04 to 24.04
When I was using version 20.04, I didn't have to mount my external drives from Disks and Devices,
they were mounted automatically when I plugged in the USB connector.
In KDE Partition Manager, the drive that I cannot mount is listed.
When I double-click on the drive a Device Properties window opens.
According to that, SMART status: Good
When I click on the More button, the SMART Properties window, Overall assessment: Healthy
Read Error Rate: good
Throughput Performance: good
Spin-up Time : good
Konsole
ron@ron-NUC8i3BEH:~$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/mywhitedrive
$MFTMirr does not match $MFT (record 3).
Failed to mount '/dev/sdb1': Input/output error
NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a
SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows
then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very
important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate
it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g.
/dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation
for more details.

I hope I have answered all your questions and provided all the information you asked for.
Thank you for your help.

**oshunluvr** · Mar 08, 2025, 07:54 PM

looks like you don't have the needed ntfs tools installed. Try installing ntfs-3g and trying again.

**boxcorner** · Mar 09, 2025, 08:38 AM

Thanks again for your help

I followed this:
https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-mount...d-write-access

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install ntfs-3g fuse
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
ntfs-3g is already the newest version (1:2022.10.3-1.2ubuntu3).
ntfs-3g set to manually installed.
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
fuse3 : Breaks: fuse
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages. <=== could you please tell me what should I do to correct this?

$ sudo parted -l

$ sudo mkdir -p /mnt/mywhitedrive

$ sudo mount /dev/sdb /media/mywhitedrive
mount: /media/mywhitedrive: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb, missing codepage or helper
program, or other error. <=== could you please tell me whether or not this can be fixed?
dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.

$ mount | grep ntfs

Addendum
Concerning held broken packages
I found this:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...roken-packages
So I am following the suggestions therein.[
well
sudo apt install ntfs-3g
sudo apt install fuse
each install without any errors.
only
sudo apt install ntfs-3g fuse
produces the broken packages error

**oshunluvr** · Mar 09, 2025, 04:36 PM

Originally posted by boxcorner View Post

$ sudo mount /dev/sdb /media/mywhitedrive
mount: /media/mywhitedrive: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb, missing codepage or helper
program, or other error. <=== could you please tell me whether or not this can be fixed?

The problem is you're using the mount command incorrectly.

You can't mount the entire storage device this way. NTFS does not permit it. You must direct the mount command to the partition that contains the file system.

So instead of this: sudo mount /dev/sdb /media/mywhitedrive
try this: sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/mywhitedrive

with "sdb1" referring to the first partition. If you need to mount the second partition, then "/dev/sdb2", and so on.

**boxcorner** · Mar 10, 2025, 05:07 AM

Understood, thank you.
I tried what you suggested.
This is what was displayed:

ron@ron-NUC8i3BEH:~$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/mywhitedrive
[sudo] password for ron:
$MFTMirr does not match $MFT (record 3).
Failed to mount '/dev/sdb1': Input/output error
NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a
SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows
then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very
important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate
it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g.
/dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation
for more details.
ron@ron-NUC8i3BEH:~$

I don't have Windows.
The last version I used was XP on a Lenovo laptop, dual-boot Ubuntu.
I rarely used Windows, used Ubuntu almost always.
Stopped using the laptop ages ago. Never used RAID.
This TOURO drive is like the others I have.
I don't recall having to format them, so I probably used them straight out of the box.
All my other TOURO 1TB drives have worked without a glitch ever since I bought them.
Unfortunately this one has my most recent backup, including some important data that's I'm keen to recover.
Thanks again for all your help.

**oshunluvr** · Mar 10, 2025, 02:25 PM

Yeah, well it sounds like you're stuck. Unfortunately since NTFS is not a Linux file system, what tools there are don't provide much.

I am not familiar with TOURO devices, but I doubt they're using RAID.

Probably a simple fix if you can access a Windows machine.

One idea: You might be able to create a Windows Virtual Machine, then attach the USB drive to the Virtual machine. Then Windows might be able to "fix" whatever is wrong and make the drive usable again.

**boxcorner** · Mar 10, 2025, 03:16 PM

All right, that makes sense me, try to create a Windows Virtual Machine, a logical thing to do.
Alternatively try to find someone who has a Windows machine.
Look, I really appreciate you helping me like this.
Thank you kindly for all your help.

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Kubuntu 24.04 unable to mount external drive

Kubuntu 24.04 unable to mount external drive

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