Cannot mount Western Digital 2.0 USB 2TB on Ubuntu Lucid
 

Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 12: Failed to read last sector (3907027119): Invalid argument
HINTS: Either the volume is a RAID/LDM but it wasn't setup yet,
or it was not setup correctly (e.g. by not using mdadm --build ...),
or a wrong device is tried to be mounted,
or the partition table is corrupt (partition is smaller than NTFS),
or the NTFS boot sector is corrupt (NTFS size is not valid).
Failed to mount '/dev/sdb1': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sdb1' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?

How can I mount this external HDD onto the system?

What is the output of "sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda"?

Let us know,

Forrest

:~$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda
[sudo] password:

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x50d0ccd5

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 26 203776 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 26 20978 168300544 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 20979 37286 130985985 5 Extended
/dev/sda4 37286 38914 13077504 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda5 20979 36618 125622272 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 36618 37286 5362688 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Using Windows 7 and Ubuntu Lucid Lynx

Since you can't use sdb it would be better to show us the output of sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb.

Doh! Sorry, my eyes must have crossed when I was looking at the first post and saw "(e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)". Yeah, we need the output of /dev/sdb

Forrest

Ok, tried reformatting using Windows volume manager and it failed and now the drive is "raw" with no system on it and trying to mount now doesn't work in Ubuntu! What next?

~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password :

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x50d0ccd5

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 26 203776 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 26 20978 168300544 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 20979 37286 130985985 5 Extended
/dev/sda4 37286 38914 13077504 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda5 20979 36618 125622272 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 36618 37286 5362688 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 2000.4 GB, 2000396746752 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0002de0f

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 243202 1953513560 7 HPFS/NTFS

Try doing this:

This will zero out the entire disk from start to finish; only then can you create a partition table on the drive and create a primary Ext4 partition on the drive.

Ya I have executed it. Will it take a while to do on a 2TB external HDD?