Hey guys, I just bought a 2.5 inch sata hard drive enclosure, but it wont show up when i plug it in, so i figured i would have to mount it myself. Can someone tell me how to mount it? Thanks.

Hi there,

the enclosure only? With no HDD in it?

Ubuntu, like many other popular distros, will detect external volumes automatically. But it auto-mounts only formatted file systems. So if your external enclosure contains a) no HDD or b) a blank, unpartitioned or unformatted HDD, there will be no auto-mount. You first have to create and format a partition on the HDD.

[X] Doc CPU

I am running Lubuntu (LXDE/Openbox) 11.10 and it does mount external media automatically. In fact, a pop-up dialogue box asks me if I want to browse it with the file manager or... Well, I don't remember what the other options are because I never choose them, but I know they are there.

I could bet that your brand new external HD isn't mounted or nothing else happens because it's new and isn't formatted yet. Become root and try these commands:

# su -
[enter password]
# cfdisk /dev/sdb

That should show you all the existing partitions in the external hard drive. If that fails (maybe your external drive didn't hook up as /dev/sdb), try this, also as root:

# fdisk -l

That should show you all your disks and partitions, so you can check if the external drive is /dev/sdb, or maybe /dev/sdc, or whatever.

If you can't find it, that's probably because it's not formatted. Look closely, the DISK will be identified, but with no partitions.

Creating partitions is fairly easy. Use the 'cfdisk' application, it's very easy to use. Just be very, VERY careful not to damage the partitions on the internal hard disk. Your internal hard disk probably is /dev/sda. Watch out: if you run 'cfdisk /dev/sda', you will be editing the partition table on the internal hard disk. You don't want that. If you run just 'cfdisk', it defaults to editing the partition table on the internal hard disk. You don't want that. So I recommend that you run 'fdisk -l' first, check what device the external hard disk is (probably /dev/sdb), then call cfdisk correctly: 'cfdisk /dev/sdb'.

Come back here if you need more help.

Thanks for the help,

i ran cfdisk /dev/sdb and got a fatal error then i ran fdisk -l. it brings up stuff and says that /dev/sda3/ is extended. not sure what it means.

this is what i got when i ran fdisk -l:

so what should i do now?

Hi there,

that's okay, ut means that sda3 is some sort of container that contains sda5 and sda6.

Alright, only sda shows up. Nothing else? No mention of sdb? Then there's a problem with you external disk. But you're sure there is a disk in the external enclosure?

[X] Doc CPU

yes, it is an external case and there is a hard drive in it. i did have a problem before with windows, it said i had to initialize the disk,and i did, and then it never said anything again. but yes. theres a 2.5 inch sata in the enclosure. 80 GB. windows had to install drivers too. im not sure if thats the case here as well.

Hi there,

if Windows had to install extra drivers, there's something weird about this unit. Usually, Windows supports external USB media out of the box, without any additional driver. Have you tried to contact the manufacturer of the enclosure? Or his web site?

Some time ago, I had similar trouble with an external enclosure. I had only used it with an Ubuntu PC, where it worked just fine. Then a friend visited me and brought his notebook along. We wanted to exchange some files, and I suggested that he just connect my external drive to his Windows PC. His Windows 7 based notebook briefly displayed a note about new hardware being detected, then, after some seconds, that the new hardware could now be used. However, it hadn't assigned a drive letter to the external drive, though it was a standard FAT32 partition, and Win7 even refused to assign a drive letter manually (my old Win2k PC would let me do it).
After a moment of contemplation, I dismantled the enclosure, connected the HDD to a different USB/SATA adapter and reattached that to the Win7 notebook - and it worked right from the start.
So Windows is sometimes a little picky about external drives. But I didn't know Ubuntu is, too.

Sorry I can't offer you any more help at this moment.

[X] Doc CPU

OK, your external disk is not detected. I don't know why. I just want to make sure you understand that /dev/sda is your internal disk. Never mess with that one. Be careful with that. OK?

And you should probably have full, working backups before you start using cfdisk.

In my experience, Windows does that "driver installation" thing for almost anything USB I'll ever connect to it. Even simple pen drives or SD cards, I have seen Windows do that many, many times. It's one of those things at which Linux is a lot more simple, practical and convenient. So it's not a good indicator that your hard disk or enclosure is broken.

Not even being detected by 'fdisk -l' is a good indicator, though. In your place, I would suspect the enclosure first. See if you can test that hard disk in another enclosure. If it still doesn't work, try it as an internal hard disk, connected to the motherboard on a desktop machine. If it still doesn't work, then it is probably dead and should get a proper burial. I am, however, more prone to thinking the problem is in the USB enclosure.

Sorry I can't help any more than this. Good luck.