External Backup Disk Drive

[Steve Riley]

On 2013-06-25 22:43:05 Ramesh Rao <rameshrao55 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Steve, does the output from "udevadm monitor" command sent yesterday shed some light, any light?

udevadm shows that two modules are loading -- usb_storage and uas. It also shows that the drive has eight partitions, but I don't think that's right. Obviously, the drive has visibility problems in the operating system. A little Googling shows many reports of similar problems. Certain troubleshooting steps have worked in some cases, and not at all in others.

Which USB port have you plugged the cable into? If it's a front port, try a rear port instead. These often have much more power. I'm assuming you have a desktop or tower PC. If you have a laptop, ignore this idea.

Earlier in the discussion, you include a link (http://www.kiduvinhouse.net/share/ExtSeagateDr.doc) to a document. Here, I see this output:

    ramesh at mozart:/media$ sudo mount /dev/sdc /media/mnt
    mount: /dev/sdc is not a valid block device

It's normal: you can't mount a device like this. Instead, you have to mount a partition. The proper format would be:

    sudo mount /dev/sdc1 /media/mnt

You might give the above a try, but I doubt anything will happen.

Another solution mentions listing the file system type in the mount command. Normally, it isn't necessary these days, because mount can detect the file system automatically. What happens if you try it anyway:

    sudo mount -t ext4 /dev/sdc1 /media/mnt

I'm assuming in the above that you still have EXT4 partition(s) on the drive from your earlier formatting attempt.

Generally, though, we still can't get the various disk tools to properly detect and report what's going on. I want to see if you're getting the same errors that others have reported. With the drive unplugged, please run:

    tail -f /var/log/syslog

10 lines from your syslog will print on the console, and then it will wait. Now plug in the drive. More lines will appear. Please copy-paste those lines into a reply message.


> I take it you are a kubuntu kernel/OS person.
> 
Nope. I am part of the admin team at Kubuntu Forums, though.


...Steve