Nope, a little more complicated.

4 physical drives.

1 drive has 4 partitions:
. Swap,
. Root,
. Home, and
. home/VDO
3 drives have only one partition
. 2 are backup drives,
. 1 is called VIDEO

PS: I have a closet "full" of DVDs which I rip to my computer, because it is more convenient that way.

So sda & sdd are backup/video drives and sdb is the NEW drive which has not yet been partitioned?
Is the data on sda & sdd intact and/or correct?
As for sdb, it sure looks like a NEW drive!

So what is the problem as you see it?

The new drive has been backed up, so it is up and setup as a backup drive.

The other backup drive is inaccessible... THIS is the problem I am currently having.

(I back up EVERYTHING at least once a day)
(I have "bitten myself" a few years ago because I had automatic backups, and I cannot make the backup process .... robust enough for me)

Can you do and paste the output here!
Also, which is the "other" backup drive eg sda, or better yet please identify each drive for me, eg backup1, backup2, video, new, etc.

OK,
un-commented the /dev/sdb1 entry
reboot
ran "mount"
commented the /dev/sdb1 entry
and reboot

===========================
Mount:

Script started on Sat 01 Dec 2018 11:19:46 PM CST
root@SHATNER:~# mount
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=8190024k,nr_inodes=2047506,mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,size=1646856k,mode=755)
/dev/sdc2 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
tmpfs on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=5120k)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=755)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,xattr,release_agent=/lib/systemd/systemd-cgroups-agent,name=systemd)
pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpu,cpuacct)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/memory type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,memory)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,net_cls,net_prio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuset)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/devices type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,devices)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,freezer)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/pids type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,pids)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,perf_event)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,blkio)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=34,pgrp=1,timeout=0,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct,pipe_ino=10788)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,relatime)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,relatime)
hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs (rw,relatime)
/dev/sdc3 on /home type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)
/dev/sda1 on /home/VIDEO type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)
/dev/sdd1 on /home/BACKUP1 type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)
/dev/sdc4 on /home/VDO type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,relatime)
root@SHATNER:~# exit

Script done on Sat 01 Dec 2018 11:19:53 PM CST

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

See, no /dev/sdb1 entry in the mount command.

Yes, I am confused. That is why I have asked this question.

Thank you for you assistance, though.
Have a good day!

From your mount output, it seems that
/dev/sdc2 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered)
/dev/sdc3 on /home type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)
/dev/sdc4 on /home/VDO type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)

/dev/sda1 on /home/VIDEO type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)
/dev/sdd1 on /home/BACKUP1 type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)

Well it seems that sdb has not been partitioned to have sdb1 present, as was stated before.
1)Did you buy this NEW drive and installed it in your system?
2)Or is this supposed to be an OLD existing drive with data on it?

If this a NEW EMPTY drive you need to partition /dev/sdb to add /dev/sdb1 and then to put a filesystem (like ext4) on it
and finally mount it to /home/BACKUP2 (??) (see /etc/fstab).

If it is an OLD drive with data on it then it is conceivable that the partition table got zapped and the partition (sdb1) is probably gone. Although, I have heard of people recovering lost partition / partition tables (you will have to Google it yourself).
If gone then you may need to do the above steps to add partition, make filesystem, and mount (see above).

The partition /dev/sdb1 is an existing partition, it is my second backup partition.
The drive I had just installed was a replacement for my "twitchy" drive (I was no longer to perform a fsck).
As I had mentioned earlier, I had attempted to re-partition the drive, but it had failed.

See message #7 in this thread.

Post #7 was not a re-partition attempt, but an attempt to make a filesystem, which is different.
makes a filesystem in this case ext4 on /dev/sdb1. Other filesystems include ext3, ext2, xfs, vfat, etc.


DANGER: vvvv the following will erase everything on /dev/sdb1!!

To partition a hard drive we use could fdisk, gdisk, gparted, etc. eg
to add a new partition (in this case /dev/sdb is the new blank drive and will create a new /dev/sdb1 partition, which looks like it never existed on this /dev/sdb drive before).

Once the /dev/sdb1 partition is added do
to add the ext4 filesystem to that partition.

Note the use of sdb (for the drive) and sdb1 (for the 1st partition).
/DANGER: ^^^^

Good luck.

OK.

1: As it is a backup drive, it really (sort of) doesn't matter.

2: I use cfdisk (I think) to make a new partition.

3: It will be a few hours to be certain, but I think that it worked.

3a: If it worked, THANK YOU
3b: If it didn't work, then may you be eaten by CATS!

4: If, indeed it worked, that I will label this as [solved]
5: If not, life sucks!!!!!

Thank you, man!

Just coming to this anew.

Do you actually have a directory with the name sdb1 under /dev?
Maybe you deleted it, if so you will have to recreate it, (check online for howto as you can't just create it normally).

Do you have an MBR on that disk, if not create a new one in fdisk/cfdisk, then create a partition, save it. Then put a filesystem onto it, /dev/sdb1, if that is how the new disk is recognised, check that it is /dev/sdb1 else you will overwrite a different disk!

If it was a good disk before, maybe the boot sector has got corrupted, then you will want to find another super block to replace it with, again check online for a howto to replace a super block.

OK.

I had actually did a backup on my second backup drive (the "problem" drive) overnight. To all indications, it was successful. When I replaced my new drive, I had created another partition and formatted it. However, I had to do that same thing with a existing drive.

My question is WHY?????

Nevertheless, the problem has been resolved.... finally (I hope)

Since the ""problem" drive was a backup drive, it was no big deal to just re-partition it and pop another filesystem on the drive (well, it took all night).

So, I guess the problem has been resolved, and now I have to mark this thread as [RESOLVED].

Thank you all, LinuxQuestions.org community, for thinking and offering advice through my difficulties.

You guys are great!

PS: the reason I need help is because I had a stroke in 2011, and my cognitive abilities, among other things, have been affected.

So, I really am a dumb@$$.

But I still love Linux.