Score:0

EXT4 external drive is not mounted and results in peculiar behavior in Ubuntu and GParted

cn flag

blkid outputThis Seagate HD was okay. But I didn't use it for a few months and reconnected it after arriving in a new country. I have tried to connect it to two different machines running Ubuntu 18.04. Both take longer to boot, which means something is happening. Also both machines show an unusual startup screen (one with much larger fonts, the other one with smaller!). The drive is not mounted and running GParted also kinda crashes (sort of spinning wheel). Any suggestion what could be the problem? The drive is formatted EXT4.

guiverc avatar
cn flag
Have you checked the health of the drive? https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Smartmontools (GUI tools can be used too; but you didn't specifically say if you're talking about desktop or server)
Organic Marble avatar
us flag
We need to know more. Is "this Seagate HD" bootable? Do partition(s) on it have the same UUID(s) as partitions on the computers? The output of `sudo blkid` would be instructive.
cn flag
No they don't share the same UUID.
cn flag
It's an ordinary desktop!
cn flag
smartmontools didn't really help as the drive is not mounted at all. For blkid it would have had the location /dev/sdd.
guiverc avatar
cn flag
You don't want the drive mounted to explore it's health (ie. for checking SMART), however if it's not showing at all, that indicates an electrical issue (ie. cable) OR setting in your BIOS/uEFI that prevents the drive from showing. UUID is a unique ID on the drive; if two UUIDs exist (ie. a cloned drive) the drive will be *unreliable* on any machine where both are used; ie. UUID needs to be altered so it's unique (what a U stands for; UUID applies to any devices using disk drives; it's how drives speak - if two drives have same unique ID they'll both respond meaning noise on cable; data loss)
Organic Marble avatar
us flag
The blkid output shows three physical drives, I'm guessing sda1 is / since sda2 is swap. What are sdb and sdc? Please edit your question and show /etc/fstab. Do not add a screenshot, copy and paste the text.
cn flag
one of them is where i store data (named DATA), the other one was an older HD which came with this used HP which I use only for temporary storage of files. The external device is not found at all, but it still causes the system to go erratic!
cn flag
guiverc, because the drive has issues on multiple machines, i don't think it's a BIOS issue, neither a UUID issue.
guiverc avatar
cn flag
If the drive has issues; then using the drive's only inbuilt SMART system is where I'd go as per first comment. It doesn't actually read anything from the drive itself; just the electronic circuit board of the drive (why drive shouldn't be mounted for SMART operations); but you won't get meaningful responses if the drive electronics aren't working (ie. drive is ~dead; if data is required - you can replace circuit board from same model disk drive [donor] to get over circuit board failures ... but all this is off-topic here as it's not OS/Ubuntu related but hardware)
guiverc avatar
cn flag
If `gparted` crashes; did you look at the crash report in `/var/crash/` for details? If it's just *hanging* and not *crashing* - again reads like off-topic drive failure issues.
mangohost

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.