[SOLVED] External drive error while transferring files, no longer detected

[Rixii]

I recently transferred all my backed up files onto my new Linux install (7.10) from an external hard drive that was formatted fat32. I then used GParted to reformat the drive as ext3, changed the permission from root to my user so that I could write to it, and installed Unison in order to backup/synchronize my videos/music/etc onto my external drive.

It worked fine for a while; I could see the files on my external after the initial transfer. But after it finished checking the next batch, it couldn't write because it could not find the drive. Turning the drive on/off didn't work, neither did a log out, or a complete system restart. It no longer shows up using fdisk or GParted.

There's one other thing: I used the Storage Device Manager to have the drive auto-mount, and it worked the first time I tried it. This was before I started the file transfer.. Can someone help?

[Rocket2DMn]

Can you please post the output of

sudo fdisk -l
cat /etc/fstab
mount
sudo blkid

[Rixii]

fdisk shows me my internal drive and CD/DVD drives:

Disk /dev/sda: 750.1 GB, 750156374016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000001

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1       89723   720699966   83  Linux
/dev/sda2           89724       91201    11872035    5  Extended
/dev/sda5           89724       91201    11872003+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

cat:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
#  -- This file has been automaticly generated by ntfs-config -- 
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>

proc                                       /proc            proc         defaults                      0  0  
# Entry for /dev/sda1 :
UUID=fb634e5f-3b0a-4dd8-a446-bde9f13717b4  /                ext3         defaults,errors=remount-ro    0  1  
# Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=8f4d9cc3-b52f-4e73-901c-a2ba57da80f1  none             swap         sw                            0  0  
/dev/scd0                                  /media/cdrom0    udf,iso9660  user,noauto,exec              0  0  
/dev/hdb                                   /media/cdrom1    udf,iso9660  user,noauto,exec              0  0  
/dev/fd0                                   /media/floppy0   auto         rw,user,noauto,exec           0  0  
/dev/sdc1                                  /media/External  ext3         check,errors=remount-ro,user  0  0

mount:

/dev/sda1 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devshm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)

blkid:

/dev/sda1: UUID="fb634e5f-3b0a-4dd8-a446-bde9f13717b4" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3" 
/dev/sda5: TYPE="swap" UUID="8f4d9cc3-b52f-4e73-901c-a2ba57da80f1"

[Rocket2DMn]

fdisk is only showing your root and swap partitions (sda2 is an extended partition which holds the swap partition), it's not actually showing your cd drive - those are stored in fstab though (all this is normal).
It really does seem that the drive isn't there. Let's try this. Unplug the drive, then pull the power cord out of it - wait for 10 seconds. Now plug the power back in, wait a second, then plug in the USB to the computer. Now open a terminal and run

dmesg

and post the output here. Check the fdisk command as well, and if it is different, post that back, too.

[Rixii]

fdisk is only showing your root and swap partitions (sda2 is an extended partition which holds the swap partition), it's not actually showing your cd drive - those are stored in fstab though (all this is normal).
It really does seem that the drive isn't there. Let's try this. Unplug the drive, then pull the power cord out of it - wait for 10 seconds. Now plug the power back in, wait a second, then plug in the USB to the computer. Now open a terminal and run

dmesg

and post the output here. Check the fdisk command as well, and if it is different, post that back, too.

I'm sorry, going through all the new things I've learned to do in linux and I didn't think to unplug the drive. Unplugging it for ten seconds and then plugging it back in seems to have fixed the problem. Thank you