I am running a brand-new install of MX 19.4 Patito Feo on one hard drive and have a second drive plugged in for file storage. The problem is that MX 19 refuses to mount the single ntfs partition on this secondary drive. I have tried it using the fstab file, the mount command in the terminal, and the file manager's GUI, but without success. The drive may be defective, but I seriously doubt it. I have tried accessing the data partition using an older MX 18.3 system, and it worked fine.

I should explain here that, upon booting into MX, the computer refuses to see the drive at all. I have tried adding the partition to the /etc/fstab file, but there is no visible change in the system's behavior. Entering this line into the terminal directly after a reboot:

...yields this result:

This holds true whether the partition is in the fstab file or not. The file manager does not recognize the partition, either. But when I open GParted, a prompt immediately appears asking me to enter the administrative password in order to mount the drive. (Entering the password does not mount the partition or change anything.) After GParted has opened, the partition also appears in the file manager, and the mount command yields a different error:

Please note that this second error ONLY appears after I open GParted, and it occurs even if I choose not to enter the password in the prompt.

I also tried creating another smaller ntfs partition on the same drive, but MX treated it just like the other.

System information:

- Main OS: MX 19.4 Patito Feo (64-bit)
- Other OS: MX 18.3 Continuum (32-bit)
- CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
- Motherboard: ASUSTeK P5KPL-CM
- Problem hard drive: WDC WD5003ABYX-18WERA0
- Other hard drive: WDC WD2500AAKX-753CA0

Any help would be greatly appreciated. If you would like any further details, let me know, and I will provide them.

You need to post the actual partition and the actual mount point to get some help. Also run blkid to show the partition name (sdb1, sdb2, etc.) The error indicates the incorrect device does not exist.

The device or resource busy would indicate that it is mounted. Your post indicates you have two Linux OS's so I'm wondering why you have an ntfs partition. Do you use this drive with a windows OS also? Which windows version?

To clarify: the mount command and its result look like this.

/media/computer/data, by the way, is an empty folder.

As for the rest of the question: no, I am not running Windows. The ntfs partition is solely for external file storage for my other Linux systems. I only chose an ntfs because I know that ntfs systems are sometimes used for storage in Linux. If there is a better option for a system used only for file storage, I would be glad if you'd tell me.

The two Linux systems are both installed on a single hard drive separate from the ntfs system. I just upgraded from MX 18 to 19, but I kept 18 around just in case. I'm glad I did, since it can see the ntfs partition where 19 can't.

If you are using Linux full time, (& no MS), just put a Linux filesystem on it!

No sense using an MS filesystem in such a case - even my pendrives have ext4 filesystems.

P.S. Did you check your download of MX19(?).

Not common unless a user is dual booting with some windows version or has data that needs to be seen/copied to another computer with windows on it.

As it should be but that is not what the error says. It indicates that /dev/sdb1 does not exist so run parted -l, fdisk -l or lsblk commands to get that output and see if you have an ntfs drive/partition /dev/sdb1. Linux might not mount it if it was previously attached to a hibernated computer with windows.

Don't you love that. How fragile ntfs is. If you pull a ntfs drive out of a usb port on a linux box without umounting, you may never mount it again. You also need to click on the little "remove drive safely" in a windows box before you pull it out.

I think that windows user don't notice that because, the first time you plug it back into a windows box, windows will fix it.

To the OP, if you have borked an ntfs volume, probably only windows will fix it.

To keep that from happening again, make sure you umount it first, or "safely remove drive" on the windows machine. You can then use a ntfs volume for years with no problem.

This would suggest the OP is using the wrong device ID. Post the output of the command:

lsblk

I tried making an ext4 partition, but running the mount command on this new filesystem still gives me the "special device does not exist" error in MX 19. To be frank, I don't trust MS much either, and I would be glad to stick with ext4 if only I could get it to work.

Each of those commands reports that there is indeed an ntfs partition /dev/sdb1 on the device /dev/sdb. They also report seeing /dev/sdb2, which is the ext4 system that I just created (see the first reply which I made in this post).

Just for clarification this is a USB drive that you connect to separate systems? If so have you tried other USB drives to see if they have the same problems?

I find it odd that lsblk shows the partitions but it is not recognized by the system. It might be the system is out of sync. Unplug and replugging the drive would fix that problem. MX 19 supports

This is a SATA hard drive, not a USB device.

I agree that this sometimes helps, but I have unplugged the drive and plugged it back in on several occasions with no change.

You are unplugging, and replugging a SATA drive? With the system off I hope.

This whole thread makes no sense then. Is this an internal or external drive?

To clarify, yes, I have done this with the system OFF. I've recently been doing maintenance on the computer and had to remove the drive a few times in the process. That's how I know that unplugging it doesn't work.

It is an internal hard drive.

Post the make/model of computer and the make/model of the SATA drive of your MX 19 system.

As you have been unplugging/replugging the ribbon cable, perhaps it is now faulty - try swapping the ribbon cable over, (to the sda disk), if you can't boot up, you will likely have a bad ribbon cable.

After swapping the two drives' cables, I can still boot into the sda disk without any problems.

Computer specs
- CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
- Motherboard: ASUSTeK P5KPL-CM
- Hard drive with MX 19: WDC WD2500AAKX-753CA0