# Noob problem : can't mount external hdd

## Akujin

Hello there,

I've been looking through the man page of mount and a few threads before that, but I did not find any solutions to my problem, which follows :

I just bought a 120 go Samsung usb hdd, and Gentoo does not seem to be able to recognize it. It's NTFS, and XP finds it without any problem. I've tried fdisk -l, it does not appear.

what I did until now is mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /mnt/removable

The answer I get is :

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda,

missing codepage or other error

In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try

dmesg | tail or so

I hope you'll be able to help me, and sorry if the solution is obvious   :Embarassed: 

Thx

Aku

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## bunder

 *Quote:*   

> In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try `dmesg | tail`

 

would probably be the first place to look.  

what do you see with lsusb?  does the enclosure show up there?

do you have ntfs support built? (kernel)

do you have usb_storage built? (kernel)

this should start you off.   :Smile: 

cheers

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## Akujin

Hi, 

Ok, the answer to lsusb is :

```
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 1652:6600

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

```

NTFS support was not on, so now I'll reboot and tell you after if it's working or not.

As for the dmsg|tail stuff, I don't quite understand where I should type what ( I AM a noob after all...) 

I'll be back in a few...

Aku

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## bunder

 *Akujin wrote:*   

> Hi, 
> 
> Ok, the answer to lsusb is :
> 
> ```
> ...

 

dmesg | tail goes into the xterm/konsole... its just another command.  dmesg means to print the kernel debug messages, | means pipe, send any output from left side to right side, which is tail, which shows the tail end of anything it recieves as input.

do you have a usb mouse?  i only see one valid entry in that lsusb.  you could still be missing usb_storage.

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## Akujin

Nope I don't have a mouse, the only usb device connected is the hdd, so I guess the usb_storage is ok. After changing settings with make menuconfig and rebooting I still don't see the sda when doing fdisk -l . I won't be able to check this post until tomorrow I think so sorry if I don't answer straight away to  your proposals   :Wink: 

Yours, 

Aku

EDIT : this is what I get from dmesg | tail

```
Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 1

sd 0:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x10070000

end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 16

Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 2

sd 0:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x10070000

end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 24

Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 3

sd 0:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x10070000

end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0

Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0

```

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## yodermk

An easier way to see which USB devices are connected, assuming you're in X, is with the usbview command.  You might need to emerge it.  It shows a continually updating graphical tree.

Errors from dmesg aren't good.  Might be hardware issues.

Would also be good if there were an ext3 or even vfat partition on the drive, that would be the most reliable way to see if it works.  NTFS is still a little funky in Linux (though read-only support should be OK).

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## Akujin

Hey there, 

I've been playing around with this external hdd for a few days, looking for some info on the vast web that could correspond to my problem, but nope, couldn't find anything. I think it could indeed be a hardware problem, so here comes the specs of the bloody thing :

Samsung SP1203N : 120Gb/7200rpm/2M/PATA

What I have tried :

```
 dmesg | tail

b44: eth0: Link is up at 100 Mbps, full duplex.

b44: eth0: Flow control is off for TX and off for RX.

b44: eth0: Link is down.

b44: eth0: Link is up at 100 Mbps, full duplex.

b44: eth0: Flow control is off for TX and off for RX.

usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4

usb 1-5: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices

usb-storage: device found at 4

usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning

```

```
 dmesg | tail

sd 2:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x10070000

end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0

Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0

ldm_validate_partition_table(): Disk read failed.

sd 2:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x10070000

end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0

Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0

 unable to read partition table

sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sda

usb-storage: device scan complete

```

```
fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40007761920 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4864 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System

/dev/hda1   *           1        1275    10241406    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

/dev/hda2            1276        1288      104422+  83  Linux

/dev/hda3            1289        1414     1012095   82  Linux swap / Solaris

/dev/hda4            1415        4754    26828550   83  Linux

```

After that I decided I might try to format it into Ext3, just for the fun and see what happened

```
mke2fs -j /dev/sda

mke2fs 1.38 (30-Jun-2005)

/dev/sda is entire device, not just one partition!

Proceed anyway? (y,n) y

Warning: could not erase sector 2: Attempt to write block from filesystem resulted in short write

Filesystem label=

OS type: Linux

Block size=4096 (log=2)

Fragment size=4096 (log=2)

14663680 inodes, 29311632 blocks

1465581 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user

First data block=0

895 block groups

32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group

16384 inodes per group

Superblock backups stored on blocks:

        32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,

        4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872

Warning: could not read block 0: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read

Warning: could not erase sector 0: Attempt to write block from filesystem resulted in short write

Writing inode tables: done

ext2fs_mkdir: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read while creating root dir

```

I didn't understand any of the above, but thought I could still try to mount it (I'm a believer ^^). It didn't work of course. Just for the heck of it i tried dmesg | tail again :

```
dmesg | tail

sd 2:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x10070000

end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0

SQUASHFS error: sb_bread failed reading block 0x0

SQUASHFS error: unable to read superblock

sd 2:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x10070000

end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 2

EXT2-fs: unable to read superblock

sd 2:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x10070000

end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 2

EXT3-fs: unable to read superbloc

```

Okay, that's about it, if this is easy and stupid, sorry for taking your time, if it's the hardware I'll feel less hopeless and lonely   :Rolling Eyes: 

Aku

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## eccerr0r

Who made the USB to ATA bridge? is it a supported bridge?

Do you have the complete USB database installed (should be automatic with usbtools)?  Kind of weird it didn't print out any manufacturer/product IDs.

Distinct possibility that the USB to ATA bridge isn't supported yet or needs a hack to work properly...

Do you have a Flash USB memory stick to test too?

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=534847 may have some information?

Is this a custom built external solution?

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