USB hard drive won't mount

English Hardware
1

I connect and find in my hardware list.
Then

mount /dev/sdc1 /media

And the reply I get is:
mount: you must specify the filesystem type

It is a win fat 16 or 32 bit format on the drive.
man isn’t clear as to what to type
Can you help?

2

Try

fsck -nvV /dev/sdc1

or a similar command to check the filessystem type. But if everything were alright I think you wouldn’t have had that problem. I’ve only seen those type of messages when I choose the wrong device or with a damaged CD.

3

This what I get - looks like it may be corrupt ?

fsck 1.40.8 (13-Mar-2008)
[/sbin/fsck.ext2 (1) – /dev/sdc1] fsck.ext2 -nv /dev/sdc1
e2fsck 1.40.8 (13-Mar-2008)
fsck.ext2: Superblock invalid, trying backup blocks…
fsck.ext2: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sdc1

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
e2fsck -b 8193 <device>

4

open the terminal, switch to root using

su root

next type

fdisk -l

Make a note of what is listed fot /dev/sdc1

and then substitute in mount command. ie, for Fat16/Fat32 type

mount -t vfat /dev/sdc1 /media

for ntfs

mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdc1 /media

though ideally not providing the -t option Linux should automatically detect the FS type. try the above anyway

5

I had the problem with automounting usb drives after updating to the latest kernel version. I reverted to the default install kernel version and all works again.