Western Digital’s MyBook is a USB-connected external disk. A 500MB MyBook auto-mounted without complaint, but the 1TB is not recognized by SuSE 11.1 or 11.2. A report shows the device is recognized by a 64-bit version of SuSE Linux. I am running the 32-bit version of SuSE 11.2. Is that the reason? Is there a way to manually mount the drive?
Without the disk connected, from a root terminal, type the following:
tail -f /var/log/messages
Now, insert the drive in to one of the USB ports and post the messages here.
Following your instructions, no messages were posted as a consequence of plugging the drive into a USB port. The status light on the drive lit, then faded with a blinking cycle. I tried connecting the drive several times but no messages were generated.
Can you power off and on the drive and see if messages appear?
Powered on and off the drive, no change. Just for grins, I plugged in two different memory sticks, but neither were recognized.
With it connected does it show in fdisk -l
Are you sure this drive is really a working one? Did you test it elsewhere?
Also, does it have any other interface other than the USB? (For example, Firewire).
If it’s seen in fdisk (replace ? as required)
as su in a term
mount /dev/sd? /media
The short answer is the three storage devices are in common use with other computers, but none are recognized in this Dell 2400. Tried by booting Puppy Linux CD runtime, and no luck. I then mounted the drive using Puppy Linux CD runtime on an older Dell computer.
And fdisk -l gives what?
fdisk -l only shows the two mounted internal hard drives. Thank you for your help, but I have experienced a number of issues with this computer and can get another. Time to recycle. Thanks again!
I don’t know if my previous response was recorded. fdisk -l has only ever displayed two mounted hard drives. At any rate, think it is time to find another CPU, there have been too many odd issues with this computer.
I am using openSUSE 11.2 32bit, and I also use and own a 1tb WD Mybook.
Is this MyBook brand new? IE, have you already partitioned it?
From memory (which is not that good anymore!), these drives have 2 partitions on them when new, one containing some WD software, the other an NTFS partition.
I had to delete both partitions then completely power-off the drive before I could create my new (linux) one. I think the drive has it’s own (windows) safeguard software or something that prevents accidental partition deletion.
It took me 2 attempts to create my linux partition.
A few ideas:
- Completely disconnect the drive from the power AND the computer, plug the power adapter in and wait till the drive has “cycled”. You will hear it spin the disk up and do it’s self check, you will see no lights, the drive should then turn itself off again.
If you don’t hear the drive spin up, then the drive is faulty.
- Plug the USB cable into a USB 2 port. On my HP laptop I can’t use my MyBook in one of my 3 USB2 ports. I have no idea why, but when I plug it into any of the other ones, it works perfectly. So try another USB port. The drive should power on and you should see both blue lights light up, then shortly thereafter both lights will start flashing alternately as the drive spins up and does it’s internal SMART checks. Thereafter both blue lights should stay lit.
If this is not happening, then I would say your USB port (or the cable) is the problem.
- You have to be root to run this command tail -F /var/log/messages. On my system I get the following -
Nov 27 09:35:39 kevs-laptop kernel: 3589.277048] usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5
Nov 27 09:35:40 kevs-laptop kernel: 3589.409653] usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=1058, idProduct=1100
Nov 27 09:35:40 kevs-laptop kernel: 3589.409678] usb 1-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Nov 27 09:35:40 kevs-laptop kernel: 3589.409697] usb 1-2: Product: My Book
Nov 27 09:35:40 kevs-laptop kernel: 3589.409712] usb 1-2: Manufacturer: Western Digital
Nov 27 09:35:40 kevs-laptop kernel: 3589.409727] usb 1-2: SerialNumber: 57442D574341553432343535393439
Nov 27 09:35:40 kevs-laptop kernel: 3589.410010] usb 1-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Nov 27 09:35:40 kevs-laptop kernel: 3589.414420] scsi7 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Nov 27 09:35:40 kevs-laptop kernel: 3589.414816] usb-storage: device found at 5
Nov 27 09:35:40 kevs-laptop kernel: 3589.414823] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
Nov 27 09:35:41 kevs-laptop kernel: 3590.414666] scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access WD 10EACS External 1.65 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
Nov 27 09:35:41 kevs-laptop kernel: 3590.415140] sd 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
Nov 27 09:35:41 kevs-laptop kernel: 3590.416913] usb-storage: device scan complete
Nov 27 09:35:41 kevs-laptop kernel: 3590.417864] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] 1953525168 512-byte logical blocks: (1.00 TB/931 GiB)
Nov 27 09:35:41 kevs-laptop kernel: 3590.421888] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
Nov 27 09:35:41 kevs-laptop kernel: 3590.421917] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 21 00 00 00
Nov 27 09:35:41 kevs-laptop kernel: 3590.421925] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Nov 27 09:35:41 kevs-laptop kernel: 3590.424472] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Nov 27 09:35:41 kevs-laptop kernel: 3590.424500] sdb: sdb1
Nov 27 09:35:41 kevs-laptop kernel: 3590.437238] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Nov 27 09:35:41 kevs-laptop kernel: 3590.437255] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
- Again as the super-user, ***fdisk -l ***shows -
Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x41ffc810
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 121601 976760001 83 Linux
- As a normal user, lsusb shows -
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 1058:1100 Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
I hope that helps.