I have a LaCie `Big Disk' (1TB), connected through usb, which I have been using successfully to back up from a Ubuntu 7.10 desktop. Whenever the LaCie was powered up it would start a file window and show up in /media

Now when I power it up none of this happens. There is no sign of it under /media and nothing shows when I use the Places menu. I understand how to mount partitions, and I have fuse installed, but I cannot figure out what the device is.

I am pretty sure that this problem has come about because in the meantime I used the LaCie to back up material on an XP desktop. I'm guessing the LaCie now thinks it lives in a windows world.

I'd really like to know how to spot where among all the files in /dev this drive is, or how to address it.

Best, Nocte

There are lots of ways of investigating this. Here's one:

Plug in the disk. Wait 20 sec.
In a terminal, what's the output of
(That's "minus ell" not "minus one")
To see if it is detected, then mount to see if it is mounted anywhere.

Thanks tredegar. I didn't know about fdisk. But the output doesn't show the LaCie. Output to fdisk -l
and mount are below.

I've since found several other posts about problems with LaCie drives but none that help.

If you've got any further suggests, I'll be grateful! N

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x8494c3e3

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1216 9767488+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 1217 9729 68380672+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 9400 9729 2650693+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 1217 9399 65729884+ 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000e4a7c

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 9729 78148161 83 Linux

===============================================================

mount

/dev/sda1 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devshm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.22-15-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/sdb1 on /beyond type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sda6 on /home type ext3 (rw)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)

What does dmesg say? Don't post the whole lot, just the relevant parts.

You are right: the commands show just two 80GB disks. One (sda) with partitions for / and /home and swap, the other (sdb) just one 80GB linux partition which you have mounted as /beyond.

This does not look good.

More Qs follow:

1] Check the USB cable (try another one).
2] Does the laCie spin up when you power it up, and / or plug it into USB?
3] Do other things work in that USB socket?
4] Some LaCies have firewire or ethernet as well as USB connections. Do you have those options? Can you try connecting the LaCie using a different method? What happens?
5] Does windows see the LaCie?
6] What filesystem is (or maybe was) on the LaCie (eg NTFS ext3 vfat etc)?
7] Please plug the laCie into linux USB and then provide the output of
Because maybe the kernel has something to say about it.
8] How important is the data on the LaCie?

Thanks Nylex, tredegar,

Here is the last so many lines from dmesg

[ 50.423544] NET: Registered protocol family 17
[ 57.544190] NET: Registered protocol family 10
[ 57.544470] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions
[ 57.544728] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
[ 67.978381] eth1: no IPv6 routers present
[ 146.179077] 2:1:1: cannot get freq at ep 0x1
[ 218.660948] 2:1:1: cannot get freq at ep 0x1
[ 277.408227] usb 4-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
[ 277.519995] usb 4-4: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 277.735577] usb 4-4: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 277.951204] usb 4-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5
[ 278.062966] usb 4-4: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 278.278566] usb 4-4: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 278.494126] usb 4-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6
[ 278.901344] usb 4-4: device not accepting address 6, error -71
[ 279.013131] usb 4-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 7
[ 279.420358] usb 4-4: device not accepting address 7, error -71
[ 1417.401464] usb 4-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 8
[ 1417.513322] usb 4-6: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 1417.729008] usb 4-6: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 1417.944690] usb 4-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 9
[ 1418.056548] usb 4-6: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 1418.272235] usb 4-6: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 1418.487925] usb 4-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 10
[ 1418.895345] usb 4-6: device not accepting address 10, error -71
[ 1419.007196] usb 4-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 11
[ 1419.414600] usb 4-6: device not accepting address 11, error -71
[ 7758.551754] usb 4-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 12
[ 7758.663586] usb 4-6: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 7758.879302] usb 4-6: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 7759.094984] usb 4-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 13
[ 7759.206823] usb 4-6: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 7759.422501] usb 4-6: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 7759.638200] usb 4-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 14
[ 7760.045610] usb 4-6: device not accepting address 14, error -71
[ 7760.157474] usb 4-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 15
[ 7760.564881] usb 4-6: device not accepting address 15, error -71

Throughout the file there are a lot of error messages.

Here's the tail of /var/log/messages:

Aug 31 17:14:33 Vig03 -- MARK --
Aug 31 17:34:33 Vig03 -- MARK --
Aug 31 17:54:33 Vig03 -- MARK --
Aug 31 18:14:33 Vig03 -- MARK --
Aug 31 18:34:33 Vig03 -- MARK --
Aug 31 18:43:19 Vig03 kernel: [ 7758.551754] usb 4-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 12
Aug 31 18:43:20 Vig03 kernel: [ 7759.094984] usb 4-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 13
Aug 31 18:43:20 Vig03 kernel: [ 7759.638200] usb 4-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 14
Aug 31 18:43:21 Vig03 kernel: [ 7760.157474] usb 4-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 15
Aug 31 18:54:33 Vig03 -- MARK --

I had the LaCie plugged into usb for both these.

I've swapped the usb around. I get the same problem in other usbs and other things work fine where the LaCie originally
was.

LaCie does spin up when powered on, but doesn't always power on when the desktop is switched on (it used always to).

I left the original filesystem on the LaCie (ntfs-3g from memory) and am now kicking myself for not having reformatted it.

There's about 350GB used on the LaCie of which some is replaceable but about 100GB is vital.

Thanks again so far. I'll now try the LaCie in the XP machine.

Nocte.

I plugged the LaCie into the XP and everything seemed OK.

So I guess this means I have one escape strategy: copy the LaCie onto an XP machine (have to buy one with
that big a disk!) reformat the LaCie as ext3 and start again with backup procedure (I use rsync). Gradually
transfer the files from XP onto the Linux machine.

About firewire -- I don;t have this on the desktops (5 years old). I'm not sure how to ethernet the LaCie to a desktop.

I'd still like to understand what happened with the LaCie.

Nocte

The cable, and USB socket seem to be fine then.
This is not good news.
It probably doesn't matter what the FS is, the device does not seem to be working.
Oops. OK, We'll do our best to get your data back.

Any joy from windows? (You did remember to "Safely Remove / Eject" (I forget win terminology) the disk before you unplugged it from windows last time I hope?)

The results you gave in your last post suggest that the device is being recognised as a USB deivice, but linux doesn't know what to do with it, and therefore isn't mounting it anywhere.

This could be a fault with the USB controller (3Y ago I had a LaCie fail like this), or the filesystem, or the disk(s).

Opening the LaCie box will invalidate your guarantee. Returning it will lose all your data - they'll just provide another HDD that is "working".

More Qs:
How many disks in the enclosure?
Are they PATA or SATA? Maybe you do not know.

I ask because I am wondering if we can rescue your data by directly plugging the disk(s) into something else, like a different enclosure. But don't burn any bridges yet.


You didn't answer this:
We await the answer to this:

We cross-posted. (I am cooking supper)
If it works with win, then backup the 100GB of files you say are vital, whilst you can, then we can work on the rest.
So would I.

Thanks again. I can't back up the 100GB at the moment because I don't have an XP machine with that much space. I'll have to think about how to deal with this. The XP machine I have is a relic of 1999 with 20GB on and I only use it for one or two odd tasks.

I'm pretty careful about unmounting hardware from windows. I need to use windows at work so the habits are well ingrained.

I'll look into the question of discs in the LaCie and come back.

Trout and potatoes here!

Best, N

The LaCie pages no longer show exactly the model I have, though it's only a few months old. The closest seems to be

http://www.lacie.com/uk/products/product.htm?pid=11026

but even so there's very little detail about the inner workings. I don't think I would have bought a drive with PATA discs since I don't know what they are. It's very likely to be SATA.

I think I may have to do the following: go out tomorrow and buy another external HD (*not* LaCie) in order to back up my Ubuntu system. Apart from the need for regular backups, I'm worried about this system -- the `Partition table entries are not in disc order' warning and some trouble I've been having each bootup. That will give me a breather while I look for a way to retrieve the vital material off the LaCie.

I use the Ubuntu for most of my real work and if I lost what's on it now I would be in real trouble.

I'll let you know how this goes ...

It turns out that of the four usb ports on my machine, only one is 2.0 and the other three are 1.1.
I'm not pleased (euphemism) to discover this, but it's five years since I bought the machine and a
bit late to complain. For the record, the machine was bought direct from Viglen in the UK.

These LaCie drives are explicitly specified as working with 1.1, but I can't say I blame them for
not doing so.

Here's what happened since my previous post: I bought a new 1TB HD from LaCie, plugged it into what I
now know to be a 1.1 port and got no response, as before. I took it to a slightly newer machine with
SciLinux 4.4 on it (and 2.0 ports) and the drive showed up in /media, but didn't start up nautilus.
I then plugged it into a XP machine (2.0 again) and followed the assistant provided, formatting as
32GB FAT32 and the rest NTFS.

I then went back to the Viglen 2003 machine and plugged it into the original (1.1) port. No response,
except that an empty file .hal-mtab showed up in /media. I then discovered, more or less by accident,
that this was a 1.1 port. I plugged it into the 2.0 port and both partitions showed up.

Going back to the original external hard drive, it is fine in the 2.0 port also.

Grrr. A large furfy to Viglen. But many thanks to the people who responded last week -- you taught me
several useful things.

K