[SOLVED] Is reformatting external hard drive required when switching from windows to Linux os? WD My passport 500gb Hd

Dpres71 · 01-21-2021, 10:32 PM

Soon to be Linux convert.I have external hard drives for pictures and files. All data on drives was written using windows os. Can I continue to use same hard drives with out reformatting? Thank you for your time, assistance and coaching. I didn’t see this question already asked, if I missed it I will happily search again

whizje · 01-22-2021, 10:27 AM

No formatting required.

jsbjsb001 · 01-22-2021, 11:25 AM

If your drive is formatted with the NTFS filesystem, depending on the Linux distribution you choose, you may need to install the ntfs-3g package. Because not all Linux distributions install the ntfs-3g package by default. The ntfs-3g package contains the required NTFS filesystem driver needed to be able to mount an NTFS formatted drive on Linux with full read-write access.

jefro · 01-22-2021, 03:40 PM

Using external Windows drives is usually transparent to the user.

Two things to know. One is your distro may require your user to have rights to mount, read and write.

As noted above.
Some older distro's may not have NTFS-3g but almost all can and do have it to write to NTFS formats.

Exfat may be similar where you might need to add in some support.

Dpres71 · 01-30-2021, 01:19 PM

Kubuntu is seeing the HD when I use blkid but it won't see the UUID. My guess is because I put a password on the HD several years ago. From what I have read and watched, it appears that the only way to remove the password is to reformat (Not a linux problem or issue of course). Can anyone confirm that the HD must not have a password protection for linux to mount and open? Thank you again for any guidance.

computersavvy · 01-31-2021, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dpres71

Kubuntu is seeing the HD when I use blkid but it won't see the UUID. My guess is because I put a password on the HD several years ago. From what I have read and watched, it appears that the only way to remove the password is to reformat (Not a linux problem or issue of course). Can anyone confirm that the HD must not have a password protection for linux to mount and open? Thank you again for any guidance.

I cannot confirm one way or another, since you say that is an NTFS drive and I have no clue about how windows handles that. I doubt that Kubuntu will cleanly handle that form of windows security.

What I would suggest is that you copy all the data off it to a flash drive. Use linux to repartiton and format it the way you want, then put the data back on it. This would eliminate any conflicts in the way linux handles windows form of drive security.

jsbjsb001 · 01-31-2021, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dpres71

Kubuntu is seeing the HD when I use blkid but it won't see the UUID. My guess is because I put a password on the HD several years ago. From what I have read and watched, it appears that the only way to remove the password is to reformat (Not a linux problem or issue of course). Can anyone confirm that the HD must not have a password protection for linux to mount and open? Thank you again for any guidance.

Windows UUID's/serial numbers don't look the same as Linux UUID's - Linux UUID's are a much longer string. Unless the drive is actually encrypted, then you should still be able to mount it under Linux provided you have the relevant filesystem drivers installed on your system.

Why don't you post the output from the following command within CODE tags,

Code:

lsblk -f

and we can give a better answer.

yancek · 02-01-2021, 06:02 AM

Quote:

Can anyone confirm that the HD must not have a password protection for linux to mount and open?

I don't use drive passwords but it doesn't matter which OS you are using if you have a drive password, you need to enter it on boot to access it. So just enter the password for the drive, get your data off. Or have you forgotten the password, you haven't indicated that's the case? A problem with using an ntfs filesystem if you are only going to be using a Linux OS is that if the ntfs filesystem is corrupted, you won't be able to repair it without windows or a windows repair disk at minimum. The only thing available in Linux is ntfsfix which only works for minor problems.

The link below discusses hard drive password protection and some possible ways around it if you have forgotten the password.

https://www.howtogeek.com/186881/har...re-your-files/

jmgibson1981 · 02-01-2021, 11:46 AM

I didn't see anyone mention another issue. If you don't mount the drive with proper permissions then it will be root only. Windows doesn't understand *nix permissions so everything is root by default. You need to mount it with uid / gid options in the fstab if I recall or you won't be able to write to it. Should be able to read just fine though.

Dpres71 · 02-01-2021, 09:36 PM

Code:

~$ lsblk -f
NAME  FSTYPE LABEL        UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINT
loop0 squash                                                         0   100% /snap/brav
loop1 squash                                                         0   100% /snap/brav
loop2 squash                                                         0   100% /snap/core
loop3 squash                                                         0   100% /snap/gtk-
loop4 squash                                                         0   100% /snap/snap
sda                                                                           
├─sda1
│     vfat                6115-BE17                               511M     0% /boot/efi
├─sda2
│                                                                             
└─sda5
      ext4                a25a96ac-4a3e-4bb8-9899-64b892e7b34a   80.6G    21% /run/times
sdb                                                                           
sr0                                                                           
sr1   udf    WD SmartWare 4afdfb0f00000000

jefro · 02-02-2021, 02:41 PM

I assume it is not mounted by that ???

computersavvy · 02-02-2021, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dpres71

Code:

~$ lsblk -f
NAME  FSTYPE LABEL        UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINT
sda                                                                           
├─sda1
│     vfat                6115-BE17                               511M     0% /boot/efi
├─sda2
│                                                                             
└─sda5
      ext4                a25a96ac-4a3e-4bb8-9899-64b892e7b34a   80.6G    21% /run/times
sdb

Looking at that I see sda which would be your primary disk, and sdb which has no partitions. If sdb is the disk you are asking about then linux does not even recognize a partition. That would likely indicate that it will be impossible to get any data off it using linux, and partitioning it would destroy any data there.

Use windows to recover (backup) the data then bring it back to linux and partition it to wipe out the password protected partition so linux can see it.

Dpres71 · 02-09-2021, 10:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by computersavvy

Looking at that I see sda which would be your primary disk, and sdb which has no partitions. If sdb is the disk you are asking about then linux does not even recognize a partition. That would likely indicate that it will be impossible to get any data off it using linux, and partitioning it would destroy any data there.

Use windows to recover (backup) the data then bring it back to linux and partition it to wipe out the password protected partition so linux can see it.

I think that is exactly what is happening. My guess is that because the HD is password protected, linux can't recognize anything on the it (sdb). I purchased a 4TB HD and linux automatically mounted and opened it for me to use. I have also been able to utilize usb flash drives as well. It seems the password is the common problem. Thank you again for all the guidance!