[SOLVED] External hard drive not mounting

lleb · 07-25-2013, 02:52 PM

give me a ls -laF of /media

NTH · 07-25-2013, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lleb

give me a ls -laF of /media

root@ubuntu:~# ls -laF /media/
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2013-07-24 14:07 ./
drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 4096 2013-07-05 10:13 ../
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18 2013-07-22 17:07 .created_by_python-fstab
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2013-07-23 10:23 external/

lleb · 07-25-2013, 03:05 PM

ok thats a good sign. verify that nothing is in /media/external and rm -rf that directory, then recreate it and see if that helps any with the mounts. i doubt it, but worth the shot.

also keep in mind that if there is data in /media/external before you mount that can, not always, but can cause issues with mount.

NTH · 07-25-2013, 03:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lleb

ok thats a good sign. verify that nothing is in /media/external and rm -rf that directory, then recreate it and see if that helps any with the mounts. i doubt it, but worth the shot.

also keep in mind that if there is data in /media/external before you mount that can, not always, but can cause issues with mount.

I recreated /media/external and tried to mount again but was not successful.

lleb · 07-25-2013, 03:15 PM

ok lets see if we can force some kind of error. try to mount the drive without the use of the -t flag. print the results. again use the code flags... if you are not aware how, and you are not by your posts, its simple: [ code ] [ / code ] just remove the spaces. put your code between them.

NTH · 07-25-2013, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lleb

ok lets see if we can force some kind of error. try to mount the drive without the use of the -t flag. print the results. again use the code flags... if you are not aware how, and you are not by your posts, its simple: [ code ] [ / code ] just remove the spaces. put your code between them.

Here it is. It seems -t flag is essential:

Code:

root@ubuntu:~# mount ntfs-3g /dev/sdc1 /media/external
Usage: mount -V                 : print version
       mount -h                 : print this help
       mount                    : list mounted filesystems
       mount -l                 : idem, including volume labels
So far the informational part. Next the mounting.
The command is `mount [-t fstype] something somewhere'.
Details found in /etc/fstab may be omitted.
       mount -a [-t|-O] ...     : mount all stuff from /etc/fstab
       mount device             : mount device at the known place
       mount directory          : mount known device here
       mount -t type dev dir    : ordinary mount command
Note that one does not really mount a device, one mounts
a filesystem (of the given type) found on the device.
One can also mount an already visible directory tree elsewhere:
       mount --bind olddir newdir
or move a subtree:
       mount --move olddir newdir
One can change the type of mount containing the directory dir:
       mount --make-shared dir
       mount --make-slave dir
       mount --make-private dir
       mount --make-unbindable dir
One can change the type of all the mounts in a mount subtree
containing the directory dir:
       mount --make-rshared dir
       mount --make-rslave dir
       mount --make-rprivate dir
       mount --make-runbindable dir
A device can be given by name, say /dev/hda1 or /dev/cdrom,
or by label, using  -L label  or by uuid, using  -U uuid .
Other options: [-nfFrsvw] [-o options] [-p passwdfd].
For many more details, say  man 8 mount .

lleb · 07-25-2013, 03:29 PM

yes, just mount /source/ /target/ dont use the ntfs-3g at all.

NTH · 07-25-2013, 03:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lleb

yes, just mount /source/ /target/ dont use the ntfs-3g at all.

Code:

root@ubuntu:~# mount /dev/sdc1 /media/external
root@ubuntu:~# df -Th
Filesystem    Type    Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2     ext4     19G   12G  5.9G  67% /
none      devtmpfs     12G  328K   12G   1% /dev
none         tmpfs     12G   24K   12G   1% /dev/shm
none         tmpfs     12G   96K   12G   1% /var/run
none         tmpfs     12G     0   12G   0% /var/lock
none         tmpfs     12G     0   12G   0% /lib/init/rw
/dev/sda1     ext2     89M   34M   50M  41% /boot
/dev/sda5     ext3    892G  524G  323G  62% /home
/dev/sdb1     ext3    917G  598G  273G  69% /mnt/data0

lleb · 07-25-2013, 03:35 PM

ok, something is not functioning properly in you computer. that should have generated an error of wrong file system type.

---------- Post added 07-25-13 at 04:35 PM ----------

do you have any other computers that you can connect that drive to. also is there any specific reason for NOT formatting the drive to ext3 or 4?

NTH · 07-25-2013, 05:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lleb

[/COLOR]do you have any other computers that you can connect that drive to. also is there any specific reason for NOT formatting the drive to ext3 or 4?

I checked it in windows and it's working fine. I thought that I may use the drive in both windows and linux but it seems that I probably should format it to ext3 or 4. Is there a preference between the two?

haertig · 07-25-2013, 05:49 PM

Try a totally different mountpoint from /media. If it's not there already, "mkdir /mnt". Then "mkdir /mnt/external" Then try to mount it there.

NTH · 07-25-2013, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by haertig

Try a totally different mountpoint from /media. If it's not there already, "mkdir /mnt". Then "mkdir /mnt/external" Then try to mount it there.

I Just tried it with no luck. like before, no errors and the drive does not show up in df -hT.

haertig · 07-25-2013, 07:19 PM

Wow, you really have a weird one there. dmesg shows the drive was recognized. fdisk sees it too. But mount fails, silently.

Maybe immediately after the mount command, before running any thing else, type "echo $?". That should give you the exit value from the immediately previous command (in your case, the mount command). Normally that would be 0 (zero) for a successful mount. What do you get?

haertig · 07-25-2013, 07:23 PM

If this were Windows, Microsoft tech support would tell you: (1) reboot, (2) reinstall the operating system. But this isn't Windows, so I don't know what to recommend at this point.

NTH · 07-25-2013, 07:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by haertig

Wow, you really have a weird one there. dmesg shows the drive was recognized. fdisk sees it too. But mount fails, silently.

Maybe immediately after the mount command, before running any thing else, type "echo $?". That should give you the exit value from the immediately previous command (in your case, the mount command). Normally that would be 0 (zero) for a successful mount. What do you get?

Code:

root@ubuntu:~# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdc1 /mnt/external
root@ubuntu:~# echo $
$