Why wont my external HDD ever mount :(

James_N

James_N

James_N

Soldato
Joined
25 Jan 2003
Posts
9,497
Hi All,

Ive had this problem in Linux for ages. Every so often I keep going back to linux hoping to get my external HDD to work in linux, but it always fails. Ive tried in Ubuntu, and this time, I was trying from a Mint 9 live image.

This is my problem:

Screenshot.png


and this is the output from fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0004548e

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 13 6375 51097600 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 6375 12749 51200000 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 12749 60802 385984512 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000202043392 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121600 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0002093a

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 121602 976761560 7 HPFS/NTFS
mint@mint ~ $
Click to expand...

A few things to note:

It sees all my internal NTFS partitions fine.

As per instructions on other topics, ive run chkdsk from windows on the drive twice, and always used the "safely remove this drive from windows" button, so its always been removed properly.

Really need to keep the drive as NTFS because A) it has a lot of stuff on it and B) the rest of my family have only just got the hang of windows, let alone Linux!
 
Right im going to try and copy just what I need off the disk, onto my laptop hard drive, will format the external hard drive, then see if it will mount in linux again :)
 
right i'll try that :) Its going to take a few hours to copy all this stuff back and forth, so i'll report later on how its gone!

One strange thing ive always experianced in linux, is that after a few hours use, it always makes me feel sick! Im not sure if thats down to fonts or what, as screen res has been the same on windows as on linux, very strange!! But i'll see how it goes.

Would it be worth formatting the drive as a linux partition? Most of the stuff on this drive is mine, and anything the parents need off it, I can put on a USB stick for them, so they wouldnt need direct access to the drive on their own computers.

That said, if linux can handle reading and writing to an NTFS partition without too much hassle daily, I would prefer that.

Thanks as ever for the help :)
 
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