Hi,
I am new to OpenSuse.
I spent my day installing OpenSuse and solving a few problems (Video card, Wireless etc.) Everything seems to be working now, except for one.
I plugged in my external hard drive, a Western Digital My Book 640GB. I get an error which reads “Unable to mount”.
The WD hard drive is in NTFS format.
Please help me.
Thanks
Hi
A few questions:
Hi,
1.When I plugin the hard drive through USB, and open the Dolphin file browser, I see an icon on the left for My Book. After clicking on that I get an Unable to mount error.
2. I am using KDE.
3. Running OpenSuse 11.1
4. The hard drive is formatted in NTFS format. I tried using Kubuntu and it detected the external drive. I switched back to opensuse because I could get my other stuff (video card,wireless) working here.
5. After running dt-Th I still can’t see the drive. It just shows the partitions on the internal drive(Windows and Linux partitions.)
I would really appreciate your help in dealing with this issue.
Thanks!
Thanks again for replying!
Maybe I made a typo, the code is
df -Th
.
It’s really strange because NTFS partitions are supposed to automount.
When I do as you did, I see an icon on the left in dolphin and if I click it I see the files no problem.
So here are a few tests:
First test – see what the kernel says when the device is plugged in:
Open a console window and enter su to become root and then run this command with the device switched off (to clear the kernel ring buffer. No need o report anything from this):
dmesg -c
Then plug the device in and run this command in the same console, still as root:
dmesg
Copy/paste the results back here. Here’s mine:
dell111:/home/john # dmesg -c
usb 5-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 5-6: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
usb 5-6: New USB device found, idVendor=152d, idProduct=2339
usb 5-6: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=5
usb 5-6: Product: USB to ATA/ATAPI Bridge
usb 5-6: Manufacturer: JMicron
usb 5-6: SerialNumber: 602DFFFFFFFF
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
usb-storage: device found at 3
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access ST350041 8AS PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 CCS
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 976773168 512-byte hardware sectors: (500GB/465GiB)
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 38 00 00
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 976773168 512-byte hardware sectors: (500GB/465GiB)
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 38 00 00
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
sdb: sdb1
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
usb-storage: device scan complete
What’s yours?
Second test is the ntfs software installed:
With the device plugged in, run this console command:rpm -qa | grep ntfs
john@suse111:~> rpm -qa | grep ntfs
ntfsprogs-1.13.1-76.38
ntfs-3g-1.5012-2.15
That’s what I get – what do you get?
Next test – test for mounted filesystems – with the device plugged in run this command again with correct syntax and paste back here:
df -Th
And finally, this will test for attached filesystems whether mounted or not. Run this one and paste back here the results (su to root first):
fdisk -l
Further to Swerdna’s excellent advice, ensure that the NTFS external drive was removed properly when last running Windows.
My view (and maybe someone can prove me wrong) is the ability of Ubuntu to mount and read the drive could be because Ubuntu is using the “force” option with the NTFS-3G driver, which is risky at best, and IMHO should be avoided. If true (and I’m not sure it is true) then thats a bad practice of Ubuntu’s.
So you could boot to MS-Windows OS, plug in the external drive, maybe do a chkdsk (with the appropriate option to repair) on the drive. You should ensure the external NTFS drive is removed properly BEFORE shutting down Windows.
Only after ensuring that can one be confident the problem is not a drive ‘flag’ problem, but rather is an openSUSE auto mount problem.
I endorse what oldcpu said. There is the action he proposed and other actions associated with a so-called “dirty” filesystem on the NTFS drive. Return the info I requested or do as oldcpu suggested, it doesn’t matter which, or in which order, just keep us informed.
Hi,
Good morning guys!
Here are my outputs. My external Hd is still not accessible. 
I have a 640GB Western Digital My Book which is in NTFS format.
For dmesg
linux-89ec:/home/somneil # dmesg
usb 4-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 4-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
usb 4-1: New USB device found, idVendor=1058, idProduct=1100
usb 4-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
usb 4-1: Product: My Book
usb 4-1: Manufacturer: Western Digital
usb 4-1: SerialNumber: 57442D574341554631353332353733
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 3
usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
USB Mass Storage support registered.
scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access WD 6400AAV External 1.65 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 1250263728 512-byte hardware sectors: (640 GB/596 GiB)
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 21 00 00 00
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 1250263728 512-byte hardware sectors: (640 GB/596 GiB)
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 21 00 00 00
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
sdb: sdb1
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
usb-storage: device scan complete
For -rpm -qa | grep ntfs
linux-89ec:/home/somneil # rpm -qa | grep ntfs
ntfsprogs-1.13.1-76.33
ntfs-3g-1.5012-2.10
For df -Th
linux-89ec:/home/somneil # df -Th
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda7 ext3 5.5G 3.2G 2.1G 62% /
udev tmpfs 999M 200K 998M 1% /dev
/dev/sda8 ext3 8.2G 310M 7.5G 4% /home
/dev/sda1 fuseblk 26G 16G 9.6G 62% /windows/C
/dev/sda2 fuseblk 49G 31G 19G 62% /windows/D
/dev/sda3 fuseblk 21G 66M 20G 1% /windows/E
For fdisk -l
linux-89ec:/home/somneil # fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x71239f9c
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 3264 26218048+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 3265 9638 51199155 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 9639 12249 20972857+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 * 12250 14593 18828180 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 12250 12262 102400 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 14071 14593 4194303+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 12263 12985 5807466 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 12986 14070 8715231 83 Linux
Partition table entries are not in disk order
Disk /dev/sdb: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xacdd9b22
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 77825 625129281 7 HPFS/NTFS
linux-89ec:/home/somneil #
Thanks for helping.
My wife has an old 60GB Seagate hard drive (VFAT formatted) that has never successfully auto-hotplug mounted under Linux. But it works under MS-Windows. I suspect the drive is not compliant with the Microsoft hotplug standards (what ever the standards are called).
Fortunately the drive is recognized by “fdisk -l” when plugged into a PC running Linux, and it can be manually mounted.
To deal with this on our PCs, I created a directory on all our PC’s Linux partitions called /windows/X. I changed the ownership to user “wife” (substitute my wife’s username) and gave the wife and members of group “users” read, write and execute permissions to that directory.
After plugging in the drive (and confirming it can be seen by ‘fdisk -l’ (and assuming it is device /dev/sdb1 )) I then mount it from a konsole/terminal with root permissions by typing:
mount -t vfat -o rw,gid=users,umask=000 /dev/sdb1 /windows/X
That is probably not the best way to mount with umask=000 (I’m a bit rusty on permissions).
now that is for a VFAT (FAT32) formatted drive. Instead for an NTFS formatted drive (assuming NTFS-3G driver is loaded) I would type:
mount -t ntfs-3g -o rw,uid=1000,gid=100,umask=0022 /dev/sdb1 /windows/X
you should be able to do something similar.
Once complete, you can unmount it (before removal) by typing:
umount /dev/sdb1
I believe in the case of NTFS drives it is important to unmount them.
For my wife, I actually put 3 icons on her Linux deskop, where one icon has the command to mount the drive, one to access the drive, and one to unmount it. That way she did not have to memorize the various commands.
But note if the NTFS drive is dirty, you WILL get an error when you try the above. I’m a bit surprised a new hard drive does not hot plug automount, and it does suggest to me the drive may be dirty (but one never knows)
I think /dev/sdb1 is your external hard drive.
Hi,
I logged into windows and removed the hard drive safely. Now when I log in into OpenSuse it detects my hard drive.
Thanks.
Thanks so much for your feedback.Appreciate it.
Yeah,
Thanks oldcpu and swerdna.
Thanks!!!