light slowly flashing on external hard drive

debianlearner · 07-18-2020, 03:14 AM

A new WD Elements portable hard drive has been plugged into a USB 3 port on a Linux desktop.

The hard drive does not appear on an fdisk -l
listing. The small light on the drive is slowly flashing.

What is happening ? Why doesn't the drive appear in the fdisk listing ?

Is the system trying to automatically mount the hard drive ?

Is the USB port underpowered ?

I hesitate to unplug the hard drive while the light is flashing in case this corrupts the filesystem
on the hard drive.

syg00 · 07-18-2020, 03:24 AM

If fdisk doesn't see it the filesystem is safe - unplug it anytime. What does this return (run from a terminal) just after you plug it in.

Code:

dmesg | tail n -20

beachboy2 · 07-18-2020, 06:00 AM

debianlearner,

If it is not already installed, install Gnome Disk Utility (aka Disks):

Code:

sudo apt install gnome-disk-utility

Launch Disks:

Code:

gnome-disks

Then refer to:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/2855...-mount-devices

You may need to use Edit Mount Options.

Soadyheid · 07-30-2020, 07:20 PM

I would suggest that the flashing light is because the USB port is supplying insufficient power to spin the disk up to a ready state. I assume the disk is in an external housing, is there an auxiliary power port on the enclosure?

my

Play Bonny!

scasey · 07-30-2020, 07:34 PM

The blue light on my WD Elements external hard drive is always “slowly flashing” except when it’s being accessed. I just presumed that was an indication of readiness. It has external power.

Is the drive mounted?

debianlearner · 08-02-2020, 05:17 AM

Please see the thread 'problem with USB 3 port' also in Hardware forum for further
development.