KDE Mint insists on formatting external hard drive - but I don't want that! <SOLVED (sort of)>

[Veerstryngh Thynner]

Hello all,

A couple of days ago, my brand-new HDD external hard drive enclosure arrived. I own a number of external hard drives, some of which can't be accessed in the usual way. Hence the enclosure.

My regular laptop runs KDE Mint 17.3. My brand-new enclosure's brand is CIT, which I purchased from eBay. Inside of the eclosure, presently, sits one of those external hard drives that can't be opened as normally. This hard drive was originally bought as a Seagate Expansion (Drive). Black print on its metal casing specifies it further as of type “Barracuda” (FWIW).

The thing with it is that accessing its files is still impossible. KDE Mint doesn't give any indication of the Seagate Expansion Drive inside, but definitely recognises the enclosure. Subsequently, KDE insists on formatting first. However, formatting the hard drive is the very last I want: what's on it I'm not sure of in exquisite detail, but what I know is that it contains some stuff I'd certainly hate to lose.

The whole idea of buying this HDD enclosure was to restore the Seagate Expansion Drive and all of its content to "normal" usage again. Invariably, though, an alert emerges that sternly summons me to format first. Whether the external hard drive inside the HDD enclosure is meant or the HDD enclosure itself, as identified by KDE Mint, remains unclear. The same happens on an ancient Windows XP laptop (hardly ever used now, but dug out for further experimenting).

Is there any way of working around this ever-recurring "obligation" to format?

Veerstryngh Thynner

[daret]

Can you read some date from the drive or read the drive with some partition editor (parted, gparted, ....)?
The system probably can see device, but can not read it, so it believes it is not formatted.

Can you to read the data from the device itself, e.g. with "dd" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix))
If it is not working at all, than the drive could be broken.

Add some photos of it

[Mute Ant]

Exquisite details like what file system are you expecting to find and has it been on a Windows system? You might...
o Put it back in the hardware it came out of and examine it using whatever wrote to it last.
o Run the photorec command on the enclosed drive to see if there are any recognisable files of data.
o Run the ddrescue command on the enclosed drive to make a file-image of the whole thing.

[phd21]

Hi "Veerstryngh Thynner",

It would help to know more about this drive and its contents. What operating system was the drive originally used with, MS Windows or Linux? Do you know what file system format the drive is formatted with, like MS Windows NTFS, or Linux ext4, etc... Have you installed "udftools" from the "Synaptic Package Manager (SPM)", and reboot?

It would help to know more about your system setup. With this drive connected, If you run "inxi -Fxzd" and "lsusb" and "sudo lsblk -f" from the console terminal prompt, highlight the results, copy and paste them back here, that should provide some needed information.

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inxi -Fxzd

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lsusb

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sudo lsblk -f

In KDE's System Settings under Removable Drives are various settings that you can turn off an on regarding removable drives globally and per drive. You can even disable these settings by unchecking the first checkbox, click apply / ok, which is what I do when I am creating USB flash drive sticks.

It sounds to me like the drive's file system is not recognized, or is corrupted, thus the system wants to format it. Once you give us the information, there are some file system repair options you can try.

Hope this helps ...

[Veerstryngh Thynner]

daret: If it is not working at all, than the drive could be broken.

It definitely isn't broken. I can feel it spinning, with my hand flat on the enclosure.

Mute Ant: has it been on a Windows system?

No, never.

Mute Ant: Put it back in the hardware it came out of

Impossible. Because of the original casing's USB cable contact being kind of wobbly already and ultimately pushed inside, inadvertently, there's no point.

phd21:

What operating system was the drive originally used with, MS Windows or Linux?

Linux Ubuntu, possibly, and Linux KDE Mint.

phd21:

Do you know what file system format the drive is formatted with, like MS Windows NTFS, or Linux ext4, etc..?

Sorry, no. Only Linux content on it.

phd21:

Have you installed "udftools" from the "Synaptic Package Manager (SPM)", and reboot?

Never even heard of that, so no once again. What is it supposed to do?

phd21:

With this drive connected, If you run "inxi -Fxzd" and "lsusb" and "sudo lsblk -f" from the console terminal prompt, highlight the results, copy and paste them back here, that should provide some needed information.

See below;

Inxi -fxzd

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System:    Host: […] -G585 Kernel: 3.19.0-32-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 4.8.2)
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 4.14.2 (Qt 4.8.6)
           Distro: Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa
Machine:   System: LENOVO product: 2181 v: Lenovo G585
           Mobo: LENOVO model: Lenovo G585 v: 31900003WIN8 STD MLT
           Bios: LENOVO v: 6CCN96WW(V8.08) date: 01/16/2013
CPU:       Dual core AMD E-300 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (-MCP-) cache: 1024 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4a ssse3 svm) bmips: 5190
           clock speeds: max: 1300 MHz 1: 780 MHz 2: 1114 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Wrestler [Radeon HD 6310]
           bus-ID: 00:01.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.17.1 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1366x768@60.0hz
           GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD PALM                      
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.5.9 Direct Rendering: Yes         
Audio:     Card Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] FCH Azalia Controller    
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2                      
           Sound: ALSA v: k3.19.0-32-generic                          
Network:   Card-1: Realtek RTL8101/2/6E PCI Express Fast/Gigabit Ethernet controller                                                        
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: 2000 bus-ID: 02:00.0     
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>                         
           Card-2: Broadcom BCM4313 802.11bgn Wireless Network Adapter
           driver: bcma-pci-bridge bus-ID: 06:00.0                    
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>                          
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 1000.2GB (81.4% used)                      
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: ST1000LM024_HN size: 1000.2GB
           Optical: /dev/sr0 model: PLDS DVD-RW DS8A8SH
           rev: KL31 dev-links: cdrom
           Features: speed: 24x multisession: yes
           audio: yes dvd: yes rw: cd-r,cd-rw,dvd-r,dvd-ram state: running
           ID-1: / size: 37G used: 8.5G (25%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
           ID-2: /home size: 877G used: 747G (90%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 4.00GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda3
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 48.5C mobo: N/A gpu: 48.0
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 154 Uptime: 27 min Memory: 977.6/3523.2MB
           Init: Upstart runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.4
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.111) inxi: 2.2.28

lsusb

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-G585:~ > lsusb

Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0bda:0129 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTS5129 Card Reader Controller
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 04f2:b2e1 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd 
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 14cd:6116 Super Top M6116 SATA Bridge
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 093a:2510 Pixart Imaging, Inc. Optical Mouse
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

I think Bus 003 Device 003: ID 14cd:6116 Super Top M6116 SATA Bridge might be the enclosure/external hard drive.

sudo lsblk -f

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-G585:~ > sudo lsblk -f
[sudo] password for peter: 
NAME   FSTYPE LABEL MOUNTPOINT
sda                 
├─sda1 ext4         /
├─sda2              
├─sda3 swap         [SWAP]
└─sda5 ext4         /home
sdb                 
└─sdb1              
sr0  

phd21:

In KDE's System Settings under Removable Drives are various settings that you can turn off an on regarding removable drives globally and per drive.

Below a screenshot of what Removable Drives looks like, in KDE Mint 17.3.

Selection_152.png

FYI: I can't establish which of the devices attached, as shown in Removable Drives, is the enclosure/hard drive.

phd21:

You can even disable these settings by unchecking the first checkbox, click apply / ok, which is what I do when I am creating USB flash drive sticks.

That's what I found in the first place: Removable Drives greyed-out, the first box not ticked.

phd21:

It sounds to me like the drive's file system is not recognized, or is corrupted.

Not recognised: most definitely. Corrupted: not very likely. I suspect that the system wants to format the hard drive because of the former.

phd21:

Once you give us the information, there are some file system repair options you can try.

Looking forward to these.

Veerstryngh Thynner

[phd21]

Hi "Veerstryngh Thynner",

Okay, assuming there is only the internal drive and one external drive, then the external drive is called "sdb". Do you know what the drive's capacity (size) is supposed to be? Was it ever used as a bootable drive?

You can bring up the Partition Manager, click on the other drive (not your main drive), right click the drive and make sure it is unmounted and right click it again and select check drive, apply. Then, right click and see if it will mount. If it mounts, then bring up Dolphin file manager and try accessing it... I have found the using the bootable "gparted live" CD or USB stick will work well for this too, even when the KDE partition manager does not.

If this was a MS Windows file system on the drive (NTFS, Fat32, extFat, etc...), I would recommend using the bootable CD of "MiniTool Partition Wizard" tool to check and fix the drive.


Hope this helps ...

[Veerstryngh Thynner]

Hi phd21 a.o.,

The other day, a good friend of mine put enclosure + external hard drive through the wringer, so to speak. The thing is that neither my system nor my friend's are able to determine what to play files on the hard drive with. The friend subsequently put a real effort in, so as to try and save at least some content, but after a five hour run, just all of four minutes were rescued. That gave me no other choice but to format the blasted drive after. Two hundred gig of movies and TV series lost - some of the latter not available any longer.

As it so happens, I was running out on hard drive storage. A wholly blank 2TB suddenly available. So although not really “solved”, if you get my drift, the matter is now at least formally solved. Albeit not in a manner I'm entirely happy with.

Thanks very much anyway to all who extended a helping hand.

Veerstryngh Thynner