I know this is an old bug, and I have tried some of the solutions here to no success. I am posting because the external HDD that doesn’t mount has my dissertation and I really don’t feel, in this case, like tinkering around with code I don’t really understand (I don’t want to corrupt the file-system).
I’m using Opensuse 12.1 KDE on a Lenovo G570 64bit. The device is a Lacie 500Gb disk, formatted for Windows, where it works properly. I just made a fresh install of Opensuse, using all the hard drive but using a separate partition for /home. The suspect HDD was running fine under Debian. The physical USB port works fine and two other flash-drives work properly. I can see the drive on the device notifier but I cannot mount it.
This is some output that might be useful:
$ sudo /sbin/fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0009a943
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 2048 4208639 2103296 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2 * 4208640 46153727 20972544 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 46153728 976773119 465309696 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table
$ sudo mount /dev/sdb /mnt
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/sdb': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sdb' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?
$ rpm -qa | grep ntfs
libntfs-3g81-2011.4.12-3.1.2.x86_64
ntfs-3g-2011.4.12-3.1.2.x86_64
ntfsprogs-2011.4.12-3.1.2.x86_64
$ sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb /mnt
root's password:
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/sdb': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sdb' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?
$ mount
devtmpfs on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1991948k,nr_inodes=497987,mode=755)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,relatime)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
/dev/sda2 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,user_xattr,acl,commit=600,barrier=1,data=ordered)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,relatime)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,relatime)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,mode=755)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,release_agent=/lib/systemd/systemd-cgroups-agent,name=systemd)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuset)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuacct,cpu)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/memory type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,memory)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/devices type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,devices)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,freezer)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,net_cls)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,blkio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,perf_event)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=21,pgrp=1,timeout=300,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct)
tmpfs on /media type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,mode=755)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,relatime)
tmpfs on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,mode=755)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,relatime)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,relatime)
hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs (rw,relatime)
tmpfs on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,mode=755)
/dev/sda3 on /home type ext4 (rw,relatime,user_xattr,acl,commit=600,barrier=1,data=ordered)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,relatime)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/monorhesus/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=100)
I have added ntsf to /etc/filesystems:
$ kdesu kwrite /etc/filesystems
vfat
hfs
minix
reiserfs
ntfs
*
And I have tried the dirty old trick of restarting the laptop with the HDD connected. Nothing works.
Please let me know if I can provide any additional info. Any insight most appreciated.