I’m trying to install OpenSuse to a 2.5" hard drive in an external USB enclosure. The problem is, the OpenSuse installer doesn’t see the external drive.
To research the issue, I tried several other distros’ live disks: Puppy, CentOS, and Mint - none could see the external USB drive. GParted didn’t list it, either.
I’m thinking there must be a boot command or a terminal command to get OpenSuse to see the drive. I know the drive and enclosure are healthy, because they’re visible in Windows 7.
Is the drive visible in an installed openSUSE system or other Linux system?
Is it connected directly to the main USB port of the machine rather than say to a hub?
What does fdisk -l report
So not sure what openSUSE version you have, but updates to a newer Linux kernel have required to deal with USB 3.0 ports. It can also matter if the USB hard drive uses the same port port type. That is, USB 2.0 Port with USB 2.0 hard drive, USB 3.0 Port with 3.0 hard drive and USB 2.0 Port with 3.0 hard drive for instance. A USB 2.0 port on both ends should work, while other combinations may require a kernel upgrade to work.
I’m trying the “big” OpenSuse 12.3 installer disk (4.7 GB). Haven’t got Linux presently installed (want to install it on the hard disk that’s presently in the external USB enclosure, as the laptop it will go in doesn’t have a working DVD drive).
I don’t have OpenSuse installed in another system - could do that, but would prefer to use a live CD to solve the problem first. As mentioned earlier, I tried finding the drive with Puppy Linux, CentOS, and Mint, without success. Works in Windows 7 (finds the drive, lists contents, allows writing and deleting files).
The desktop system is several years old with USB 2.0 ports; the external drive enclosure is also USB 2.0.
Will get back to this tonight - working on full day.
When you go into the Computer BIOS setup with the USB hard drive connected, can you select the external hard drive at the main boot drive? If not, you will be unable to get openSUSE to work on the external drive. While I do not know why, it does sound like something is wrong with the hard drive or the PC USB port if you can not make this selection.