(exFAT) Unable to mount or use brand new WD MyBook 14Tb external HDD

DevMau5

8/5/24, 8:59 AM

I have an issue and I can't seem to have any solution for it. I'm trying to connect a brand new WD MyBook 14Tb to my Ubuntu computer externally. The HDD is recognized and identified but the Exfat partition on it is not seen, I get "Free Space". Screen of disk utility:

When I try to format it, simply I can't. Error:

The drive is working wonderfully on Windows but no way to get it to work on ubuntu externally (it works directly connected through SATA though) The issue seems to come from the SATA to USB converter used by WD, but I can't find drivers or anything that would help me

NB : Following a comment, here is the journalctl outpout (replaced HDD serial number by Xs) :

Aug 05 14:28:32 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: usb 6-4: new SuperSpeed USB device number 4 using xhci_hcd
Aug 05 14:28:32 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: usb 6-4: New USB device found, idVendor=1058, idProduct=25a3, bcdDevice=10.30
Aug 05 14:28:32 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: usb 6-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Aug 05 14:28:32 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: usb 6-4: Product: Elements 25A3
Aug 05 14:28:32 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: usb 6-4: Manufacturer: Western Digital
Aug 05 14:28:32 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: usb 6-4: SerialNumber: XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Aug 05 14:28:32 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: usb-storage 6-4:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
Aug 05 14:28:32 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: scsi host10: usb-storage 6-4:1.0
Aug 05 14:28:32 HP-Z420-Workstation mtp-probe[432015]: checking bus 6, device 4: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.7/0000:08:00.0/usb6/6-4"
Aug 05 14:28:32 HP-Z420-Workstation mtp-probe[432015]: bus: 6, device: 4 was not an MTP device
Aug 05 14:28:32 HP-Z420-Workstation mtp-probe[432021]: checking bus 6, device 4: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.7/0000:08:00.0/usb6/6-4"
Aug 05 14:28:32 HP-Z420-Workstation mtp-probe[432021]: bus: 6, device: 4 was not an MTP device
Aug 05 14:28:33 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: scsi 10:0:0:0: Direct-Access     WD       Elements 25A3    1030 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
Aug 05 14:28:33 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: sd 10:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg6 type 0
Aug 05 14:28:33 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: sd 10:0:0:0: [sdg] Spinning up disk...
Aug 05 14:28:50 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: .................ready
Aug 05 14:28:50 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: sd 10:0:0:0: [sdg] Very big device. Trying to use READ CAPACITY(16).
Aug 05 14:28:50 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: sd 10:0:0:0: [sdg] 27344699392 512-byte logical blocks: (14.0 TB/12.7 TiB)
Aug 05 14:28:50 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: sd 10:0:0:0: [sdg] 4096-byte physical blocks
Aug 05 14:28:50 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: sd 10:0:0:0: [sdg] Write Protect is off
Aug 05 14:28:50 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: sd 10:0:0:0: [sdg] Mode Sense: 47 00 10 08
Aug 05 14:28:50 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: sd 10:0:0:0: [sdg] No Caching mode page found
Aug 05 14:28:50 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: sd 10:0:0:0: [sdg] Assuming drive cache: write through
Aug 05 14:28:51 HP-Z420-Workstation kernel: sd 10:0:0:0: [sdg] Attached SCSI disk
Aug 05 14:28:51 HP-Z420-Workstation systemd-udevd[433596]: sdg: Process '/usr/bin/unshare -m /usr/bin/snap auto-import --mount=/dev/sdg' failed with exit code 1.

0 + 7

mount

udisks

external-hdd

exfat

disk-formatting

Raffa

8/5/24, 9:28 AM

What is your Ubuntu version? ... You probably need to install exFAT support with `sudo apt install exfatprogs`

24601

8/5/24, 9:50 AM

will it format ext4?

oldfred

8/5/24, 1:30 PM

Did you not create partition(s) on sdg? Or write directly to the drive? That makes it like an old floppy drive that did not use partitions. Almost all tools now require partitions. Also FAT, exFAT are not recommended for larger drives. If you need compatibility with Windows use NTFS.

DevMau5

8/5/24, 5:05 PM

Ubuntu 22.04, It won't format in any format unfortunately, if I connect it in SATA directly it does work great but I would need it to be connected externally

Raffa

8/5/24, 5:28 PM

Please run `journalctl --follow` in the terminal ... Then, plug your disk through USB and wait a few seconds until the output seems to stop updating ... Then, stop the command by pressing the Ctrl+C keys and copy that output to your question by [edit]ing it.

DevMau5

8/5/24, 6:33 PM

Thanks for your comment, done !

Raffa

8/5/24, 8:18 PM

I don’t see anything out of the normal except maybe the possible absence of a partition table … So, try mounting it manually: `mkdir ~/exmount && sudo mount -t exfat /dev/sdg ~/exmount && cd ~/exmount && ls`

Elon Musk

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EN: (exFAT) Unable to mount or use brand new WD MyBook 14Tb external HDD

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