Cannot find USB hard disk

[Eberhard Roloff]

Dotan Cohen wrote:
> I am connecting an EXT3-formatted 40 GB known-good Western Digital
> hard disk to my Kubuntu 8.04 machine via USB-to-IDE adaptor. When I
> plug the drive in nothing related shows up in dmesg nor in fdisk:
> 
> hardy1 at hardy1-laptop:~$ sudo fdisk -l
> [sudo] password for hardy1:
> 
> Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
> Disk identifier: 0x000c6625
> 
>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sda1   *           1        1459    11719386   83  Linux
> /dev/sda2            1460        2918    11719417+  83  Linux
> /dev/sda3            2919        3283     2931862+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
> /dev/sda4            3284        9729    51777495   83  Linux
> hardy1 at hardy1-laptop:~$
> 
> 
> 
> Where should I take it from here?
> 
The same happened to me with a brand new machine (asus board) recently.

Just for test, try to attach to a different usb port and ultimately to a 
different computer.

Also as others pointed out this disk needs to be externally powered and 
you should either hear or feel (with the disk in your hand) it spinning up.

Eberhard

Eberhard