Seagate 3TB USB hard drive does not plug and play in Linux Mint 12
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Seagate 3TB USB hard drive does not plug and play in Linux Mint 12
I bought a Seagate "Backup Plus" 3 TB USB 3.0 hard drive, expecting it would be a simple matter to plug in the USB cable, it would automagically mount into the file system like other pluggable USB storage media, and I could then back up some files. The drive seems to be operable (makes the expected whirring sound when powered on and the USB cable is plugged in on both ends) but nothing automagic is happening.
The USB drive does not appear in Nautilus.
The USB drive does not appear in fdisk -l:
Code:
sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 100.0 GB, 100030242816 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12161 cylinders, total 195371568 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xcccdcccd
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 39063551 19530752 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 39063552 42969087 1952768 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3 42969088 195371007 76200960 83 Linux
But the USB drive DOES appear to lsusb:
Code:
lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 04b3:3016 IBM Corp. UltraNav Keyboard Hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 1199:0218 Sierra Wireless, Inc. MC5720 Wireless Modem
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 0483:2016 SGS Thomson Microelectronics Fingerprint Reader
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 04b3:3018 IBM Corp. UltraNav Keyboard
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 06cb:0009 Synaptics, Inc. Composite TouchPad and TrackPoint
Bus 001 Device 008: ID 0bc2:a0a4 Seagate RSS LLC
(last device in the list).
What should be done, to mount this drive into a Linux Mint 12 file system and have it usable for reading/writing data? I don't care about the Windows and Mac applications provided by Seagate on the drive for Windows and Mac users to interact with cloud services, do automatic backups, or interact with social media ... just want an expansion drive for manual file backups.
You should look at the /var/log/messages and /var/log/syslog files or you should type dmesg after you have plugged
your hard drive. This should tell you which device file (if any) is associated with that hard drive. This might
be as simple as /dev/sdb. You will then be able to read the partition table with:
Quote:
fdisk -l /dev/sdb
With that information, you can try a manual mount:
Quote:
sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb1 /mnt
should mount the first partition (assuming it is ntfs) on /mnt.
If there is no device file associated with the drive, it means that it is indeed unsupported by your system.
Distribution: Debian Sid AMD64, Raspbian Wheezy, various VMs
Posts: 7,680
Rep:
For such a large disk it must be GPT so fdisk won't work: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-fdisk-607498/
Try using parted or gparted instead. I tend to use gparted to investigate new disks as I find the GUI a little quicker to check partitions with.
Of course, when using any partitioning tool triple-check that you're operating on the right disk before proceeding.
May 20 07:07:49 localhost kernel: [36994.262033] sd 12:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI disk
May 20 07:07:49 localhost kernel: [36994.262385] sd 12:0:0:2: [sdf] Attached SCSI disk
May 20 07:07:49 localhost kernel: [36994.262408] sd 12:0:0:4: [sdh] Attached SCSI disk
May 20 07:07:49 localhost kernel: [36994.262610] sd 12:0:0:5: [sdi] Attached SCSI disk
May 20 07:07:49 localhost kernel: [36994.266733] sd 12:0:0:3: [sdg] Attached SCSI disk
and:
Quote:
May 20 07:07:49 localhost ata_id[7965]: unable to open '/dev/sdk'
May 20 07:07:49 localhost ata_id[7966]: unable to open '/dev/sdg'
May 20 07:07:49 localhost ata_id[7967]: unable to open '/dev/sde'
May 20 07:07:49 localhost ata_id[7969]: unable to open '/dev/sdj'
May 20 07:07:49 localhost ata_id[7970]: unable to open '/dev/sdf'
May 20 07:07:49 localhost ata_id[7971]: unable to open '/dev/sdh'
May 20 07:07:49 localhost ata_id[7968]: unable to open '/dev/sdd'
May 20 07:07:49 localhost ata_id[7972]: unable to open '/dev/sdi'
This is strange, your disk seems to be viewed as 8 disks, /dev/sdd to /dev/sdj but none of them can be opened.
You may try gparted to examine the partitions on /dev/sdd, but don't do anything that would write to the disk.
Linux mint should have Disk Utility
Check to see if you can see it there.
Also you can use it to mount drive.
Yes Mint 12 does have the Disk Utility. On the second try with the new drive powered up and connected, it appeared. That is, 8 USB-attached peripheral storage devices /dev/sdb through /dev/sdi appeared appeared :-) The same 8 that appeared in the system log file. All have the same serial number. It looks like my system does not understand the geometry of this drive. Just for grins I tried running a read-only benchmark test on one of these. As expected, it didn't work:
Code:
Error benchmarking: helper exited with exit code 1: Error opening /dev/sdb: No such device or address
Not sure I want to format it, until the physical geometry of the device is understood.
Gparted (or parted per EDDY1's suggested link -- that article looks authoritative) is next in line to see what it understands about this drive.
sudo parted /dev/sdb
Error: Error opening /dev/sdb: No such device or address
I am starting to think the best course may be to return this drive to the store.
My goal was (is) to have a large USB drive that could be accessed by several different Linux machines as well as a Windows machine. ((One of the Linux notebooks will have to run Windows, or at least Windows in a VM, to run certain unfortunately-necessary Windows applications. I have to think about whether it makes sense to upgrade the Mint 12 notebook to a current release of Mint first. Will it be better to have this PC be dual boot (Win XP Pro and latest Mint), or Mint-with-Win-XP-in-a-virtual-box? I haven't tried virtual box yet but everybody says it is trouble-free and effective. I need to learn more about the software installation sequence and think through what I am trying to achieve.))
I am not sure why you examined sdb, when the new drive seems to be in sdd through sdj.
In parted, try "print all." That should list all devices that are present, and all partitions. See if it makes sense. When things are working normally, it looks like this (on my system with 2 USB external drives):
Code:
(parted) print all
Model: ATA ST3500630AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 2155MB 2154MB primary linux-swap(v1) type=82
2 2155MB 23.6GB 21.5GB primary ext4 boot, type=83
3 23.6GB 500GB 476GB primary ext4 type=83
Model: Maxtor OneTouch (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 1000GB 1000GB primary ext4 type=83
Model: Seagate GoFlex Desk (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 2000GB 2000GB primary fat32 lba, type=0c
(parted)
Does your kernel support gpt it has to be compiled in kernel http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-gpt/
Also have you tried running parted from a live-cd?
Have you tried from a wins computer?
Most external drives have software, which is cdfs, that is only for wins & mac, although the rest of the drive is usually readable by linux.
I am not sure why you examined sdb, when the new drive seems to be in sdd through sdj.
I understand your puzzlement. The first time I posted my system log it was sdd thru sdj. However the Disk Utility (at a later time) gave sdb thru sdi (maybe my Android phone was plugged into a different USB port?). Currently the system log shows sdb thru sdi after plugging in the drive's USB cable.
parted (no argument) print all showed only the laptop's internal 100 GB drive. No sign of the external USB drive.
With the current sdb thru sdi assignments, parted /dev/sdd gives the same error reported for sdb:
Quote:
sudo parted /dev/sdd
Error: Error opening /dev/sdd: No such device or address
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