<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 TRANSITIONAL//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; CHARSET=UTF-8"> <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="GtkHTML/4.2.2"> </HEAD> <BODY> ***SOLVED*** Ok, so today I went to the computer store where I bought both the 2 enclosures and the new Seagate drive. We used a Sata HDD Docking thingo to test, and voila!!!...it worked perfectly. I could write to the drive in Ubuntu without losing the partition, and even format in Ubuntu if I wanted. I showed them what the enclosures where doing, and so they are going to get some different model / brand enclosures in on Monday from another store and then we will test those in store before I take them away. Downside is I didn't need to buy the Seagate in the first place, as it wasn't a HDD issue. Good news is the WD drive I was replacing is probably all OK, and so now I have 2 x 1TB drives instead of just 1 Also I am very luck that I only 'read from' and did not 'write to' the 500GB drive that I had in the other enclosure, otherwise I probably would of lost everything on that drive. Very odd problem, and one of the guys in the store even refused that it would be the enclosures, until we tested the theory. But glad it is resolved, or at least will be on Monday when I get my new enclosures. Thank you all for your input, efforts and help. Much appreciated. :) -----Original Message----- Subject: Re: External HDD is corrupted Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 18:06:57 +0800 compdoc, I only have 2 cables that will work, they are both exactly the same, and both work on windows fine, so at this stage I'm assuming its not the cables, but I take your point, and if it turns out not to be the enclosures then that is something else to check. Karl, I have tried 2 USB enclosures and they are both new and exactly the same. So I don't think that its cause they are faulty, but possibly not 100% compatible with Ubuntu, or at least I need to rule them out. Dave, Both the WD and Seagate are 3.5" Drives. Although I do have 2 x USB 3.0 ports on the Laptop, the enclosures have a separate power supply that plugs into the mains. I will have to go back to the computer store tomorrow where I got the drive and enclosures, and see if they have something else I can borrow or buy to test the drive/s with. At this point I'm really hoping it is the enclosures, because at least that is an easy fix. <PRE> On Fri, 2014-03-28 at 07:44 +0800, Agent M wrote: > Australia. Will see if I can get something locally, so I can at least > rule the enclosures out. USB enclosures can and do "go bad". I use a lot of these things, and have had no less than three fail. They fail in interesting and confusing ways. First thing I do when a drive in an enclosure fails is to put the drive in a different enclosure and see if the problem goes away. Regards, K. </PRE> </BODY> </HTML>