USB HD bricked?

[Langstracht]

I just used ubuntu's Disk Utility to format a multi partitioned hard drive.

The "format" seemed to go "well" ... except I didn't see any lights flashing to indicate any disk activity. Nonetheless I seemed to have ended up with an empty disk.

HOWEVER, it will NOT mount with ubuntu.

The log stops at "Attached SCSI disk".

I seemed to read that such not-mounting problems are not uncommon and the best (easiest?) way to fix 'em is by mounting the drive on a microsoft machine and doing chkdsk. Fair enough. A Windows machine (MS7 if it matters) gave a friendly beep when the HD was plugged in and, in a pop up, told me that the "new hardware" had been installed ... but it is nowhere to be found.

Anyone know how I can get over this? I'd like my drive back.

TIA

[wilee-nilee]

I would try gparted, which from a Ubuntu install, needs to be installed to look at the HD, gparted can also be downloaded as a bootable disc as well, and is on the live Ubuntu cd.

There are a number of partitioners that run in windows as well you can look on the web for them. Perfect disc the free download is one I often use to move all data to the front of the disc when doing windows partition size changes, it runs in windows and has some nice tools.

http://www.raxco.com/

[Langstracht]

Thanks for taking the time to respond,

As far as I know I cannot use gparted if I can't mount the disk. If gparted is usable with an unmounted disk please tell me how.

As for partitioning, in fact I do NOT want the disk to be partitioned. Sorry for mentioning that it was before and, I guess, throwing you off track.

[wilee-nilee]

Thanks for taking the time to respond,

As far as I know I cannot use gparted if I can't mount the disk. If gparted is usable with an unmounted disk please tell me how.

As for partitioning, in fact I do NOT want the disk to be partitioned. Sorry for mentioning that it was before and, I guess, throwing you off track.

I suggested gparted and other partitioner’s as they may give you a clue as to why you are having problems.

[ahallubuntu]

To clarify, disks aren't "mounted" - only partitions are. Gparted works with partitions on a disk, and it can simply be used to view the existing partition structure not change partitions. It doesn't matter if there are any partitions on a disk or not - Gparted can still "see" it if registers as a drive. If a partition is already mounted it will flag an error if you try to manipulate it.

Gparted is a useful, helpful tool to have on hand.

But instead of Gparted, try fdisk. Open a terminal and type this:

sudo fdisk -l

and post the output of that here.

[Langstracht]

... but ... how do I get gparted (or any other utility) to access the drive?

[Langstracht]

Sorry, our messages sort of passed in the night there.

fdisk gives:

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: 0x7f55528b

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1828 14683378+ 27 Unknown
/dev/sda2 * 1829 1841 104422+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 1842 21766 160046224 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 21766 38914 137736193 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 21766 38212 132100096 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 38212 38914 5635072 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 8017 MB, 8017412096 bytes
186 heads, 43 sectors/track, 1957 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 7998 * 512 = 4094976 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 2 1958 7825408 b W95 FAT32

Disk /dev/sdc: 80.0 GB, 80026361344 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 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: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sdc doesn't contain a valid partition table


Presumably my "problem" is /dev/sdc. Sure hope you know what to do about it ...