WD My Passport not recognized

[sgtor]

Reading the output of dmesg shows that it is part if the WD passport. You should follow Deepak's advise from the second post. He had it right from the start and the dmesg output confirms it.

If you want to buy a usb tester they are fairly cheap and can tell you exactly what port or cable is bad, that really helps to narrow down the exact problem.

I own this one and I like it a lot. I'm not saying buy this to solve your problem I'm just saying it's a nice thing to have and can make troubleshooting easier.
https://www.amazon.ca/X-DRAGON-Multimet ... way&sr=8-1

I use it mostly for cables.
You'll see the error tells you what port so for that you don't need it.

[helmar]

Shall we focus on this part of the dmesg

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[ 2484.701988] usb 3-1: new SuperSpeed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd
[ 2484.718445] usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=1058, idProduct=07a8
[ 2484.718459] usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 2484.718462] usb 3-1: Product: My Passport 07A8
[ 2484.718464] usb 3-1: Manufacturer: Western Digital
[ 2484.718466] usb 3-1: SerialNumber: 575835314138334335343832
[ 2484.780162] usb-storage 3-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[ 2484.780259] scsi host4: usb-storage 3-1:1.0
[ 2484.780368] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[ 2484.800950] usbcore: registered new interface driver uas
[ 2485.778684] scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access     WD       My Passport 07A8 1042 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[ 2485.778907] scsi 4:0:0:1: Enclosure         WD       SES Device       1042 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[ 2485.779953] sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[ 2485.781334] scsi 4:0:0:1: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 13
[ 2485.782888] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Spinning up disk...
[ 2486.786088] .
[ 2492.078020] scsi 4:0:0:1: Wrong diagnostic page; asked for 1 got 0
[ 2492.078028] scsi 4:0:0:1: Failed to get diagnostic page 0xffffffea
[ 2492.078032] scsi 4:0:0:1: Failed to bind enclosure -19
[ 2492.078058] ses 4:0:0:1: Attached Enclosure device

Hi mrmajik45.

Do you think there is something else to try? I'm just about giving up from this...

[helmar]

Reading the output of dmesg shows that it is part if the WD passport. You should follow Deepak's advise from the second post. He had it right from the start and the dmesg output confirms it.

If you want to buy a usb tester they are fairly cheap and can tell you exactly what port or cable is bad, that really helps to narrow down the exact problem.

I own this one and I like it a lot. I'm not saying buy this to solve your problem I'm just saying it's a nice thing to have and can make troubleshooting easier.
https://www.amazon.ca/X-DRAGON-Multimet ... way&sr=8-1

I use it mostly for cables.
You'll see the error tells you what port so for that you don't need it.

The USB tester would be a nice option if this HD was mine. But I'm just trying to help a friend and show him that we can solve on Linux problems that we can't on Windows
Unfortunately, I won't be able to convince him of this.

[lsemmens]

That USB tester looks like it should be in everyone's toolbox, gonna have to get me one of those!

[sgtor]

That USB tester looks like it should be in everyone's toolbox, gonna have to get me one of those!

It is pretty awesome. It speeds up troubleshooting pretty nicely.

[helmar]

That USB tester looks like it should be in everyone's toolbox, gonna have to get me one of those!

It is pretty awesome. It speeds up troubleshooting pretty nicely.

Okay. So I guess there is no other solution for me but trying another cable or buying this USB tester?

[lsemmens]

That USB tester looks like it should be in everyone's toolbox, gonna have to get me one of those!

It is pretty awesome. It speeds up troubleshooting pretty nicely.

Okay. So I guess there is no other solution for me but trying another cable or buying this USB tester?

THAT should have been your first test!

[sgtor]

It is pretty awesome. It speeds up troubleshooting pretty nicely.

Okay. So I guess there is no other solution for me but trying another cable or buying this USB tester?

THAT should have been your first test!

+1

So now you can show your friend that Linux can actually tell you what the problem is but it's not going to make a faulty cable work.

Maybe in the future we'll have nanobots that can stand at the ready when Linux diagnose's a bad cable and just go in and repair it.
That's possible but far into the future.

[helmar]

Okay. So I guess there is no other solution for me but trying another cable or buying this USB tester?

THAT should have been your first test!

+1

So now you can show your friend that Linux can actually tell you what the problem is but it's not going to make a faulty cable work.

Maybe in the future we'll have nanobots that can stand at the ready when Linux diagnose's a bad cable and just go in and repair it.
That's possible but far into the future.

Sgtor... I appreciate your help, as well all the other inputs in this thread but I still can't say that the problem is really due to a faulty cable. As soon as I test it, I will reply with the results. In the meanwhile, your joking is funny but shows some criticism about my original post. No, I have no lack of confidence in Linux. Though I'm not a tech professional (actually I'm an HR man), I've been using Linux for the past 10 years and I'd never change my mind. And I'm always trying to show to my friends here in Brazil how reliable, stable, fast and safe Linux is.

[sgtor]

I was poking a bit of fun at you but it was good natured and actually a ha ha serious joke. Sometime in the future after we're all dead and gone I can see the reality of nanobots doing that sort of thing.

The only reason I jest with you is you seemed so determined to believe that it's not a bad cable. And while you are correct it may not even be a bad cable, we don't know that yet and we can't know that until you test it. Everything right now points to it being a bad cable though.

To find more evidence of it being a bad cable or possibly a bad drive just try it with a few different computers.

[phd21]

Hi helmar,

I just read your post and the good replies to it. Here are my thoughts on this as well.

A.) Regarding any USB devices:
- Do not use USB hubs that do not have their own power supplies, only use self-powered USB hubs. This applies for drive docks too.

- Always try a different USB port directly on the computer and some devices (rare) may not work properly on USB 3 ports or USB 1.x ports if they are designed for USB 2.x and visa-versa. Some computers even have specific USB ports only for keyboards and mice, so do not use that type of USB port with anything but keyboards and mice.

+1 for the USB tester. I like that USB tester, that would be handy...

- If you have another USB cable for the USB drive and or device or know someone who does, try it. Do not use USB extender cables when diagnosing problems.

B.) USB drives and USB sticks can come with any file system installed which may not be compatible with any particular operating system without installing file system drivers first. Linux and Linux Mint are very versatile. Lately, I have seen and read about people with various USB drives, USB sticks, microSD cards, etc... with various file systems on them like the "extfat" file system which requires installing the "exFat-fuse" and "exFat-utils" packages from the "Synaptic Package Manager (SPM)". I would also recommend installing the "udftools" from the "Synaptic Package Manager (SPM)" with its recommended and suggested packages. And, from the replies in your post, it looks like this one drive may have been made for Mac (iOS) computers which means you would have to install from the "Synaptic Package Manager (SPM)" the "hfsutils", "macutils", "hfsutils-tcltk" first before accessing those drives. Then you would have to restart (reboot) your computer before trying to access the drives and their partitions.

I have fully installed versions of Linux Mint on USB stick(s) greater than 16gb with all available file systems and diagnostic (forensic) tools on it, so that I know I could read most drives and their partitions and or repair (run disk checks) on them. I am not sure that the Live installation of Linux Mint systems with or without persistence setup would work properly for accessing exfat or mac file systems, but they might with persistence.

C.) I have found with certain drives and partitions when reformatting them that just deleting or reformatting the partition and or drive to another file system may not be enough. You may have to delete the partition volumes and the partition table (boot area mbr or GPT, etc...) and create a new partition table before creating a new partition with whatever file system you want on it and reboot and or unplug the drive and plug it back in. You may even have to power down (power off) your computer and external drives and restart before accessing them again.

D.) And, as has already been stated, the drive itself may actually be dead, or going bad, is fully or partially defective, etc... And or the cable is bad or defective as well. Have you tried the drive on other computers and perhaps run disk checks on the drive from any computer that can access them?

I have 2 older USB WD passport mechanical drives for backups, one failed within months of getting it which they replaced, and now both after 5+ years are showing signs of pre-failure and one is making the "clicking noise" which is not good. The smartmontools (smartctl) are great for checking the health and for providing information on drives both internal and external.

Good luck...

Hope this helps ...

[sgtor]

A couple of you have expressed interest in that usb tester so I thought I would post this info about the functions. I didn't write this I found it on the internet somewhere back when I bought it.

Button usage:
1.Press the button to switch between seven different display modes.
These seven display modes are:

-VA(display voltage and current only); This is the default and probably your most used setting.
-C(display capacity only);
-P(display power only);
-VA+C(display cycles through voltage, current and capacity);
-VA+P(display cycles through voltage,current and power);
-C+P(display capacity and power);
-VA+C+P(display cycles through voltage, current, capacity and power)

2.Press and hold the button to clear accumulated capacity

Output 1: Charge and Data pass through
Output 2: Charge only

[helmar]

THAT should have been your first test!

+1

OK guys. I have news! Not good ones.

Just tried a brand new cable and guess? Nothing's changed.
Here is the dmesg output again

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[  770.372065] usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=1058, idProduct=07a8
[  770.372073] usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[  770.372078] usb 3-1: Product: My Passport 07A8
[  770.372082] usb 3-1: Manufacturer: Western Digital
[  770.372086] usb 3-1: SerialNumber: 575835314138334335343832
[  770.435510] usb-storage 3-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[  770.435593] scsi host4: usb-storage 3-1:1.0
[  770.435682] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[  770.458980] usbcore: registered new interface driver uas
[  771.436332] scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access     WD       My Passport 07A8 1042 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[  771.436669] scsi 4:0:0:1: Enclosure         WD       SES Device       1042 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[  771.438272] sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[  771.438695] scsi 4:0:0:1: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 13
[  771.441883] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Spinning up disk...
[  772.443492] .
[  777.732003] scsi 4:0:0:1: Wrong diagnostic page; asked for 1 got 0
[  777.732009] scsi 4:0:0:1: Failed to get diagnostic page 0xffffffea
[  777.732013] scsi 4:0:0:1: Failed to bind enclosure -19
[  777.732042] ses 4:0:0:1: Attached Enclosure device
[  778.735654] ..ready

Now, this is getting interesting.
The (and worse) hypothesis is really a bad or corrupted drive. But I'd like to ask you to give a further look based on the Windows diagnostic.
In Windows when I start Disk Management it prompts a window that says:
You must reboot the disk for the logical disk management to access it (free translation from Portuguese version of Windows here)
Then it asks me to choose between MBR and GPT warning me that I will have all the data lost.

This external drive has never been used as a boot disk.

Please, anyone? Or do I have to accept that this HD is bricked?

[mrmajik45]

If it is a windows based partition (NTFS/FAT32) then try this command in a WINDOWS Command Prompt as Admin.

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chkdsk E: /f /r /x

Replace E with the drive letter that windows shows in the disk management software.

[helmar]

If it is a windows based partition (NTFS/FAT32) then try this command in a WINDOWS Command Prompt as Admin.

Code: Select all

chkdsk E: /f /r /x

Replace E with the drive letter that windows shows in the disk management software.

This should be the most elementary solution but obviously, Windows doesn't assign a letter to this drive. That's why I haven't tried this yet. The drive only appears in diskmgmt.msc (Disk management). It appears as Disk 1, Unknown, Not Initialized.

[mrmajik45]

Hmm. Welp. Use some data recovery software. EaseUS Data Recovery wizard? https://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywiza ... ftware.htm Click the "Share" button on the software and close it (Trick it!). Now you have 2gbs to recover. Pick what they need the most to recover.

[sgtor]

The dmesg output isn't showing anything about a bad cable anymore so it looks like the new cable was needed.

So now I would try to see it in gparted again.

or

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lsblk

or

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sudo fdisk -l

In that dmesg output it's assigned to /dev/sdb so look for sdb

If fdisk finds it look to see what the "TYPE" is. If it says Linux then you can run

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fsck /dev/sdbx

x= 1 or 2 or 3 etc, it's a partition number.

[helmar]

The dmesg output isn't showing anything about a bad cable anymore so it looks like the new cable was needed.

So now I would try to see it in gparted again.

or

Code: Select all

lsblk

or

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sudo fdisk -l

In that dmesg output it's assigned to /dev/sdb so look for sdb

If fdisk finds it look to see what the "TYPE" is. If it says Linux then you can run

Code: Select all

fsck /dev/sdbx

x= 1 or 2 or 3 etc, it's a partition number.

Okay. Here it goes.

lsblk results

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sudo lsblk
[sudo] password for helmar: 
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 931,5G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0  1000M  0 part 
├─sda2   8:2    0   260M  0 part 
├─sda3   8:3    0  1000M  0 part 
├─sda4   8:4    0 297,4G  0 part 
├─sda5   8:5    0   977M  0 part 
├─sda6   8:6    0     1M  0 part 
├─sda7   8:7    0   5,9G  0 part [SWAP]
└─sda8   8:8    0 624,9G  0 part /
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom  

No sdb partition

fdisk -l results

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sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 931,5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: E47C9A7D-5CB3-4900-A39E-566012EE29FC

Device         Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1       2048    2050047    2048000  1000M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda2    2050048    2582527     532480   260M EFI System
/dev/sda3    2582528    4630527    2048000  1000M Lenovo boot partition
/dev/sda4    4892672  628557765  623665094 297,4G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda5  628557824  630558719    2000896   977M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda6  630558720  630560767       2048     1M BIOS boot
/dev/sda7  630560768  642977791   12417024   5,9G Linux swap
/dev/sda8  642977792 1953524666 1310546875 624,9G Linux filesystem

No sdb again

So, I guess we are back to a no solution outcome. Anything else to try before giving up?

[mrmajik45]

Tell him his HDD is well... broken.

[sgtor]

No sdb again

So, I guess we are back to a no solution outcome. Anything else to try before giving up?

Just post the output of one more thing if you don't mind, I'm really just curious to see what outcome will be. I do realize most usb drives don't have smart info but even so there is usually some useful information when you do this.

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sudo smartctl -a /dev/sdb