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Thread: Can't use USB hard drive

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Canada
    Beans
    127
    Distro
    Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

    Can't use USB hard drive

    I'm using v 10.04 on a Dell Inspiron 1501.

    When I plugged in a USB hard drive in the past, sometimes an icon for it appeared on the desktop, sometimes not. When it didn't appear, I solved the problem by unplugging the drive and replugging it in or by rebooting the computer. Lately, however, the icon's stopped appearing altogether, no matter what I do, and I can't figure out how to access the drive.

    When I run dmesg after plugging the drive in, I get:

    usb 1-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
    usb 1-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

    When I run lsusb, I get:

    Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bc2:2000 Seagate RSS LLC Storage Adapter V3 (TPP)

    However, not only do I not get an icon for the drive on my desktop, I can't find an icon for it in the "Computer" window.

    When I run sudo fdisk -l, all that appears is information about my internal hard drive.

    How do I mount the drive so that I can use it? I don't mind doing it manually each time.

    Thanks,

    Leslie

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Beans
    101
    Distro
    Xubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal

    Re: Can't use USB hard drive

    Manual mount from command line:

    sudo mkdir /temp-drive

    sudo mount /dev/sd[letter][#] /temp-drive

    replacing [letter] and [#] with that drive's info.

    to unmount: sudo umount /dev/sd[letter][#]

    Also: "sudo fdisk -l, all that appears is information about my internal hard drive."

    Have you checked the drive's physical health?

    Feel for how it's spinning up and down while being plugged and unplugged.
    A cheap stethoscope works wonders for this.

    If it doesn't feel or sound smooth, or clicks, screeches, ... the physical aspect is the problem.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Canada
    Beans
    127
    Distro
    Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

    Re: Can't use USB hard drive

    Thanks for replying friv_livs.

    Re the physical health of the drive, when I boot up the same computer in Windows and plug the drive in, it works normally, so I'm not worried about the drive's condition.

    Re using the mount command, I don't know the correct info for the drive (say sdb1 or whatever). I thought I might get that by using fdisk, but I didn't. Is there some other way to get it or to assign it, say by using the information I got from lsusb?

    Thanks again,

    Leslie

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Canada
    Beans
    127
    Distro
    Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

    Re: Can't use USB hard drive

    Thanks for replying friv_livs.

    Re the physical health of the drive, when I boot up the same computer in Windows and plug the drive in, it works normally, so I'm not worried about the drive's condition.

    Re using the mount command, I don't know the correct info for the drive (say sdb1 or whatever). I thought I might get that by using fdisk, but I didn't. Is there some other way to get it or to assign it, say by using the information I got from lsusb?

    Thanks again,

    Leslie

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Beans
    101
    Distro
    Xubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal

    Re: Can't use USB hard drive

    You can try gparted from the repos for getting sd[letter][#] information.

    If that doesn't work, download and burn a partedmagic disk from here:

    HTML Code:
    http://sourceforge.net/projects/partedmagic/
    Then see how your external drive plays with that liveCD environment.

    partedmagic also has drive testing and recovery tools.

    Beyond that, someone else will have to help you.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Canada
    Beans
    127
    Distro
    Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

    Re: Can't use USB hard drive

    Thanks for your further reply.

    Your reference to a live CD reminded me of what I should've mentioned before, but forgot to. Before posting originally, I'd burnt a live CD of Knoppix, booted up with it and plugged in the USB hard drive. It was recognised by Knoppix, so it's something about my Ubuntu installation.

    I had gparted installed. I tried it on your suggestion but it didn't acknowledge the USB hard drive.

    Thanks again,

    Leslie

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