[SOLVED] Can't open hard drives

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czarabad
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[SOLVED] Can't open hard drives

Post by czarabad »

Hi all. Just installed Linux Mint 20.10 Cinnamon
I'm new to linux having transferred from windows 10 on my old desktop.

so far all seems to be working except I cannot seem to open any of my hard drives.
I have 2 drives - a 240GB ssd system/boot drive and a 500GB mechanical hard drive for storage.

When I go to My Computer I see icons for both the SSD and HDD and also a file drive.
Both drives give me the "unable to mount" message. But I can open the file "drive" just fine.

looked around online for solutions but can't understand it.

Some info from my end

sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 465.78 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: ST500DM002-1BD14
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes


Disk /dev/sdb: 223.58 GiB, 240057409536 bytes, 468862128 sectors
Disk model: Ramsta SSD S800
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x627f4344

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 1050623 1048576 512M b W95 FAT32
/dev/sdb2 1052670 468860927 467808258 223.1G 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 1052672 468860927 467808256 223.1G 83 Linux


ALSO

inxi -Dd
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 689.33 GiB used: 16.40 GiB (2.4%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST500DM002-1BD142 size: 465.76 GiB
ID-2: /dev/sdb model: Ramsta SSD S800 240GB size: 223.57 GiB
Message: No Optical or Floppy data was found.


Thanks for taking the time to help
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
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spamegg
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Re: Can't open hard drives

Post by spamegg »

That's just a weird unintuitive GUI thing. You can't double-click to "enter" the drive on which your system is installed. You have to double click "File System". It doesn't work the way it does on Windows.

For example I have 3 drives, "M4" has Mint installed. If I double-click on it I'll get the "unable to mount" error because it's already mounted as "File System". But I can access all the other ones.
01.png
I can access them on the sidebar too:
02.png
02.png (7.28 KiB) Viewed 423 times
But it's weird that you cannot access your non-Mint-installed drive. I am guessing that it's already mounted under some other name. Can you post the output of the terminal commands

Code: Select all

cat /etc/fstab

Code: Select all

blkid
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Re: Can't open hard drives

Post by AndyMH »

When I go to My Computer I see icons for both the SSD and HDD and also a file drive.
Both drives give me the "unable to mount" message. But I can open the file "drive" just fine.
You can't open your system drive in 'my computer' because the partition(s) on it are already mounted (it's not like 'my computer' in win). I never use it, just use your file manager (the home icon) you will see all the partitions on other drives in the devices pane on the left.

You can't mount your 500GB HDD (sda) because no partitions are showing on it in your fdisk output. What were you expecting to see? Has it been used in win and if so how was it formatted?

The output from sudo parted --list will at least tell us if there is a partition table on the drive.
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czarabad
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Re: Can't open hard drives

Post by czarabad »

Thanks for clearing up about the file system and the ssd drive. Yeah, it is sort of counter intuitive having the file system mounted but not the drive itself. :D

As for the 500gb drive I found out that it wasn't formatted so i formatted it and was able to mount the whole drive since I did not do any partition on it - just one whole thing.

Thanks for the help guys.
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Re: Can't open hard drives

Post by AndyMH »

czarabad wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 7:20 pm As for the 500gb drive I found out that it wasn't formatted so i formatted it and was able to mount the whole drive since I did not do any partition on it - just one whole thing.
If you used disks to do this you may have ended up with a drive with no partition table but a valid filesystem on it. While it works, not recommended. To find out sudo parted --list:

Code: Select all

Model: ATA ST2000LM015-2E81 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos  <<<<< if this says loop you have no partition table
Disk Flags: 
The other clue is if it shows the first partition starting at 0 (it normally starts at 1049kB).

If you used gparted to create the partition (it won't let you create partitions on a drive without a partition table) and the filesystem is ext4, then it is owned by root and read-only to you. Easily fixed.
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czarabad
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Re: [SOLVED] Can't open hard drives

Post by czarabad »

Yep, I used disks to erase and format the 500GB hard drive

This is the result
Model: ATA ST500DM002-1BD14 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: loop
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size File system Flags
1 0.00B 500GB 500GB ext4

Why is this not recommended? If so what should I use?

Thanks
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Re: [SOLVED] Can't open hard drives

Post by AndyMH »

Without a partition table you will not be able to create any other partitions on the drive, you will not be able to use it as a timeshift destination and some operating systems will refuse to see it.

To fix is to start over, which will wipe the drive.

The problem with disks is that creating a partition table is 'hidden'. So what you have done is a common newbie mistake*. It is off the three vertical dots button top right (or three horizontal bars). Select format disks. With a 500GB drive it doesn't really matter whether you choose a legacy (msdos) or GPT partition table. If you are booting in UEFI mode, better to use GPT for consistency, legacy boot then choose msdos.

Once you have created a partition table you can then add partitions.

You can also do it in gparted, and gparted will not let you create a partition without a partition table. In gparted it is device > create partition table.

When you create a partition add a label. When linux mounts it, it will use the label, e.g. /media/you/mylabel instead of the UUID, e.g. /media/you/fb689910-e942-46e1-b03d-e7032e0e36bb. Labels make it more user friendly.

You can find more on disks, gparted and partition tables in the foxclone user guide, page 41 onwards. Download here:
https://www.foxclone.com/download.php or here https://www.foxclone.org/
if creating ext4 partitions with gparted, note the comments on ownership (page 45).

* I did it when I started!
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czarabad
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Re: [SOLVED] Can't open hard drives

Post by czarabad »

When using DISKS when formatting can I choose do not overwrite existing data and then GPT (Compatible with modern systems and hard disks > 2TB

Or do I have to erase using overwrite existing data with zeros?

Thanks
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Re: [SOLVED] Can't open hard drives

Post by AndyMH »

No, if you want to keep your data you will have to copy it off to another drive and then copy it back afterwards.
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