External Hard drive won't mount

Texasone · #1 (**permalink**) 04-27-2008

i have a Simple Tech hard drive that i use between two computers. it is formatted to ntfs. i have a dell desktop with Ubuntu 7.10 and Ubuntu 8.04 and Windows XP Home. and i have a laptop with Ubuntu 7.10 and Ubuntu 8.04. the laptop recognizes the hard drive on both 8.04 and 7.10 but my desktop only recognizes the external hard drive on windows. Ubuntu will not recognize it on my desktop. should i try to force mount it. if so, ill need instructions please. or should i try an application/program to recognize it.

era · #2 (**permalink**) 04-27-2008

Is this a USB drive? If so, do you get anything useful from lsusb (with or without single or multiple -v options) when it's plugged in? Also, do you get any messages in the system logs when you plug it in? (Primarily /var/log/syslog I guess.)

Methal · #3 (**permalink**) 05-01-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texasone

i have a Simple Tech hard drive that i use between two computers. it is formatted to ntfs. i have a dell desktop with Ubuntu 7.10 and Ubuntu 8.04 and Windows XP Home. and i have a laptop with Ubuntu 7.10 and Ubuntu 8.04. the laptop recognizes the hard drive on both 8.04 and 7.10 but my desktop only recognizes the external hard drive on windows. Ubuntu will not recognize it on my desktop. should i try to force mount it. if so, ill need instructions please. or should i try an application/program to recognize it.

I had the same problem not 3 days ago. My solution may not be one you'd be willing to do.

I booted from it into live fedora and formated the thing. Its now dual booting to fedora and PCLinuxOS.

windows would see it and use it (it was NTFS format after all) however even though they could see and recognize it, Ubunuto 8.04, and 7.10, and PCLinuxOS they wouldnt mount or format it.

but Fedora would, so thats what I did.

Texasone · #4 (**permalink**) 06-09-2008

You're right on cue with the fact that I don't want to format the drive.(Methal) It takes too long to do so, as in copy all the files that I want over to a partition on my desktop and then format and then copy back.
Now in response to Era, I just reinstalled Ubuntu Gusty and updated the system, but still no luck. back when I used Ubuntu Hardy on the system (no Gusty), it got recognized for some reason. I switched due to the fact that my laptop wouldn't use drivers in Hardy for compiz, but Gusty did. And I just wanted the systems to be the same. Now the question becomes, would it be worth trying a version upgrade on my desktop to see if that works or should I just do the reformatting on a weekend when I'm not doing anything, or is there an easy fix to this. And no, I do not see anything promising using lsusb.
In /var/log/syslog, I get info, just nothing hopeful.

Code:

Jun  9 15:43:23 texas1 kernel: [ 1312.146425] usb 2-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 10
Jun  9 15:43:23 texas1 kernel: [ 1312.258205] usb 2-3: device descriptor read/64, error -71
Jun  9 15:43:23 texas1 kernel: [ 1312.473833] usb 2-3: device descriptor read/64, error -71
Jun  9 15:43:23 texas1 kernel: [ 1312.689456] usb 2-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 11
Jun  9 15:43:23 texas1 kernel: [ 1312.801260] usb 2-3: device descriptor read/64, error -71
Jun  9 15:43:24 texas1 kernel: [ 1313.016885] usb 2-3: device descriptor read/64, error -71
Jun  9 15:43:24 texas1 kernel: [ 1313.232513] usb 2-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 12
Jun  9 15:43:24 texas1 kernel: [ 1313.255391] usb 2-3: device descriptor read/all, error -71
Jun  9 15:43:24 texas1 kernel: [ 1313.368278] usb 2-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 13
Jun  9 15:43:24 texas1 kernel: [ 1313.390658] usb 2-3: device descriptor read/all, error -71

Please help. Thank you.

era · #5 (**permalink**) 06-10-2008

Googling for a bit brought up https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source....15/+bug/23346 which suggests disabling the EHCI driver, and/or disabling a jumper on the drive.

Personally, I would perhaps rather forgo Compiz than downgrade to an earlier version of Ubuntu. In fact, I have disabled Compiz on many of my machines -- I guess it's not really mature yet, as it interferes with all kinds of unrelated functionality (prevented me from suspending my laptop, in Ubuntu 7.10, for example).

To disable Compiz, go into System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Visual Effects tab and select None.

(This will also change your window manager from Compiz to Metacity, so if you have customized keyboard shortcuts etc. in Compiz, you will have to redo those customizations.)

Texasone · #6 (**permalink**) 06-10-2008

Era, as much as your option has merit in my circumstance (I think that is the right term/phrase to use), I have an even better idea. Just get rid of Windows and its cruelty all together. I think that this weekend I am going to just dump Windows of my box and make it a Linux/Unix/BSD box. I'm just doing a long transfer in Windows to get the info over to the comp, then format the external drive to ext3, then transfer back again via a GNU/Linux OS. This is going to save me hundreds on all new PCs that I buy or redo.(Just as a side note)

Texasone · #7 (**permalink**) 06-12-2008

I just reformatted my drive to ext3 and I still get the same problem. My laptop mounts it, my desktop doesn't. should I reformat to ext2 or should I try changing

Code:

/etc/fstab

for auto-mount. I'm redoing my desktop this weekend, so any advice before would be helpful.

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