Can't Mount External HDD

[lmack82]

Hopefully this is the right place for this question...

I decided to give Mint a spin on my PC, planning to run it along side Win7. Well jokes on me, the Mint install broke Win7, leaving me with no option but to wipe the drive entirely and only install Mint x.x but this isn't about that issue... I'm perfectly happy to stick with Linux for now except it won't read my external HDD I used for storage when I was on Windows.

It gives me:

Error mounting /dev/sdb2 at /media/larry/Storage Drive: Command-line `mount -t "ntfs" -o "uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid,uid=1000,gid=1000" "/dev/sdb2" "/media/larry/Storage Drive"' exited with non-zero exit status 13: Error reading bootsector: Input/output error
Failed to mount '/dev/sdb2': Input/output error
NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a
SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows
then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very
important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate
it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g.
/dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation
for more details.

as well as the same thing for sdb3 as well.

I ran a chkdsk /f on it in Windows on another computer (which BTW sees the files fine), but when connecting the drive back to my Linux system, I get the same two error pop-ups again. I also tried a ntfsfix but if I tried it on the sdb2 or sdb3, it gave me an error reading bootsector. Are there any other ways to access the files on this drive?

Not sure if this is helpful at all but fdisk shows a disk /dev/sdb that's 931.5GB (which is about right since the drive in question is 1TB). It then has a sdb1 - sdb4 under that.

[rene]

Is it a Western Digital drive? Some types (e.g. "passport", but others as well) feature firmware level encryption. These drives export a VCD in Windows with unlock software and something called "WD Smartware" through which or through the at WD downloadable full version of which you can disable the pasword/encryption. If this seems applicable, google for it.

[lmack82]

Is it a Western Digital drive? Some types (e.g. "passport", but others as well) feature firmware level encryption. These drives export a VCD in Windows with unlock software and something called "WD Smartware" through which or through the at WD downloadable full version of which you can disable the pasword/encryption. If this seems applicable, google for it.

Yes, it IS a WD drive in fact. So I Googled this WD Smartware VCD stuff and Western Digital has this to say:

Neither the VCD Manager or WD SmartWare is available for Linux or Unix. As a result, there is no known way to disable the Virtual CD (VCD) in these operating systems.

I'm guessing this means I'm SOL unless I can get their software on a friend's machine running Windows and hope it works?

[lmack82]

As an update, I tried taking the drive to another computer with Windows and it said it needed to be formatted. WD SmartWare also said there were no SmartWare drives found.

Even doing a Windows format still renders the drive unmountable when it returns to Linux with the same error message. The unusual thing is that it tries to mount two volumes: sdb2 (871 GB) and sdb3 (372 GB) out of the one 1TB drive. There are no partitions on the drive. I mean, it's now freshly formatted, so there's nothing on the drive.

[rene]

I am afraid I have few suggestions in that case. The assumption was that the drive worked normally in Windows. When you plug it in in Windows you do not see a Virtual CD drive appear in the explorer? If we were talking about this specific WD issue, you should. It would contain the "unlock" executable, which indeed you could need to run before a Windows system recognizes it as well.

The VCD is, as far as I'm aware, fully firmware-based; does not exist on the physical drive. That would also mean that 871 GB or GiB is too small for your 1TB=931GiB drive. Certainly 871+372 GB or GiB is too large. Could not, that is, tell you what is going on. Note though,

There are no partitions on the drive. I mean, it's now freshly formatted, so there's nothing on the drive.

That's not really a given. Windows ignores partition types it doesn't recognize as its own and its "format" will have been just a format of the one it does; the 871 GiB one, supposedly. Not of the full drive itself.

But again, not sure what to tell you if WD Smartware told you that it wasn't applicable so I'll have to leave things at that.

[rene]

Actually, let me add that it seems that depending on your actual product and/or generation thereof, you may need "WD Security" rather than "WD Smartware" http://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?p=172&lang=en

[lmack82]

I am afraid I have few suggestions in that case. The assumption was that the drive worked normally in Windows. When you plug it in in Windows you do not see a Virtual CD drive appear in the explorer? If we were talking about this specific WD issue, you should. It would contain the "unlock" executable, which indeed you could need to run before a Windows system recognizes it as well.

The VCD is, as far as I'm aware, fully firmware-based; does not exist on the physical drive. That would also mean that 871 GB or GiB is too small for your 1TB=931GiB drive. Certainly 871+372 GB or GiB is too large. Could not, that is, tell you what is going on. Note though,

There are no partitions on the drive. I mean, it's now freshly formatted, so there's nothing on the drive.

That's not really a given. Windows ignores partition types it doesn't recognize as its own and its "format" will have been just a format of the one it does; the 871 GiB one, supposedly. Not of the full drive itself.

But again, not sure what to tell you if WD Smartware told you that it wasn't applicable so I'll have to leave things at that.

I never saw any sort of "unlock" executable. On Windows, the drive has always either worked or asked to be formatted and then worked (first time I ever used it).

[rene]

I take it that you haven't been in the opportunity to try "WD Security" yet?

In any case, now that Windows also had issues with the drive: I/O errors could also be the result of a in more mundane ways than through encryption scrambled partition table. Just to make very sure: when you plug in the drive you get errors about the second and third partition. Is it certain that the first (or fourth, or ... ) also does not in fact mount? I.e., nothing relevant in the output of "df" after plugging it in? Usually, a successful mount would automatically open a file manager view of the mount but perhaps not when simultaneously you get error notifications for 2 and 3.

Although I myself only have the experience that the ATA security feature set doesn't work through USB bridges anyway, the output of "hdparm -I /dev/sdb" and especially the final part concerning the security features could also be useful. You haven't said what type of WD it is; I still expect the encryption thing to be the culprit.

[lmack82]

I take it that you haven't been in the opportunity to try "WD Security" yet?

In any case, now that Windows also had issues with the drive: I/O errors could also be the result of a in more mundane ways than through encryption scrambled partition table. Just to make very sure: when you plug in the drive you get errors about the second and third partition. Is it certain that the first (or fourth, or ... ) also does not in fact mount? I.e., nothing relevant in the output of "df" after plugging it in? Usually, a successful mount would automatically open a file manager view of the mount but perhaps not when simultaneously you get error notifications for 2 and 3.

Although I myself only have the experience that the ATA security feature set doesn't work through USB bridges anyway, the output of "hdparm -I /dev/sdb" and especially the final part concerning the security features could also be useful. You haven't said what type of WD it is; I still expect the encryption thing to be the culprit.

No, I haven't been back to a Windows machine to try WD Security.

As far as I can tell, nothing mounts since there's no drive(s) there to be accessed anywhere that I can tell. Obviously nothing opens when I attach the drive as it would with a successful mount normally.

Assuming that's a capital i... here's the output:

/dev/sdb:

ATA device, with non-removable media
Standards:
Likely used: 1
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 0 0
heads 0 0
sectors/track 0 0
--
Logical/Physical Sector size: 512 bytes
device size with M = 1024*1024: 0 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 0 MBytes
cache/buffer size = unknown
Capabilities:
IORDY not likely
Cannot perform double-word IO
R/W multiple sector transfer: not supported
DMA: not supported
PIO: pio0

The drive is a WD10EZEX.

[rene]

The drive is a WD10EZEX.

You called it an external drive and I was hence expecting an answer of for example "WD Passport". The WD10EZEX is a standard 3.5" internal SATA drive. So what are we talking about here? That drive in a generic USB enclosure? I.e., how is this WD10EZEX connected?

Your hdparm -I output is less illuminating than what I've seen from even the most Chinese of USB/SATA adapters or enclosures; /dev/sdb was (still) the correct device specifier? If this is not an original WD enclosure, in order to be able to further say anything it seems you would need to connect the drive to SATA directy so as to view the drive's security settings with hdparm -I. If it IS a WD enclosure, i.e. a "My Book" or something, I'd first see what that above linked WD Security application has to say about things.

[lmack82]

The drive is a WD10EZEX.

You called it an external drive and I was hence expecting an answer of for example "WD Passport". The WD10EZEX is a standard 3.5" internal SATA drive. So what are we talking about here? That drive in a generic USB enclosure? I.e., how is this WD10EZEX connected?

Your hdparm -I output is less illuminating than what I've seen from even the most Chinese of USB/SATA adapters or enclosures; /dev/sdb was (still) the correct device specifier? If this is not an original WD enclosure, in order to be able to further say anything it seems you would need to connect the drive to SATA directy so as to view the drive's security settings with hdparm -I. If it IS a WD enclosure, i.e. a "My Book" or something, I'd first see what that above linked WD Security application has to say about things.

The drive is connected via USB cable. There is no enclosure.

Unfortunately I can't connect the drive to SATA directly. That's the whole reason I hooked it up via USB. If I have it connected via SATA, my computer freezes at the BIOS splash screen.

[rene]

And it hadn't occurred to you that that problem and setup could've been worthy of mention? For all I know we are now just looking at an especially crummy USB adapter.

SATA is designed for hotplug. You'd switch of the computer, connect a SATA cable to the motherboard and a power-cable to the drive, switch on and only when Linux is fully booted plug the SATA cable to the drive. You should see the drive register at the end of the output of the command "dmesg" as, say, /dev/sdz (probaby still just sdb) and will be able to run the "sudo hdparm -I /dev/sdz". Paste the output here inside code tags. Especially the last bit w.r.t. the security features is of interest.

[lmack82]

And it hadn't occurred to you that that problem and setup could've been worthy of mention? For all I know we are now just looking at an especially crummy USB adapter.

SATA is designed for hotplug. You'd switch of the computer, connect a SATA cable to the motherboard and a power-cable to the drive, switch on and only when Linux is fully booted plug the SATA cable to the drive. You should see the drive register at the end of the output of the command "dmesg" as, say, /dev/sdz (probaby still just sdb) and will be able to run the "sudo hdparm -I /dev/sdz". Paste the output here inside code tags. Especially the last bit w.r.t. the security features is of interest.

Well the same USB adapter allows the drive to be read fine in Windows, so I think I can rule that out.

I am very afraid to connect a SATA drive while the computer is on because the last time I messed with a SATA power cable attached to a drive while the computer was running, the drive got fried.

EDIT: but I went ahead and connected the SATA cable to the drive anyway and nothing happened. No attempt to mount, no acknowledgment that a drive has been connected. I really can only connect HDDs via USB right now as far as I can tell (which was a system that at least was working in Windows)

[rene]

As mentioned, check the end of output of the command "dmesg" after plugging the drive.

[lmack82]

As mentioned, check the end of output of the command "dmesg" after plugging the drive.

???

the end of the output says

Code: Select all

[UFW BLOCK] IN=enp3s0 OUT= MAC= SRC=fe80:0000:0000:0000:6484:2e4f:aff8:3b18 DST=ff02:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0001 LEN=64 TC=0 HOPLIMIT=1 FLOWLBL=235071 PROTO=UDP SPT=8612 DPT=8610 LEN=24