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My Samsung 4TB external USB drive fails to mount. I want to mount it as I want to wipe it clean and reformat it.
When I open the file manager, the name Samsung appears under DEVICES, but a notification on the display says "Failed to mount "Samsung". An operation is already pending".

However, using the terminal, this USB drive is detected by the command inxi -d, output from terminal shown as ...

Code:
ID-2: USB /dev/sdb model: M3_Portable  size: 4000.8GB

I think the reason for the failure to mount was that it was accidentally unplugged during a data transfer from PC to the USB drive, so I assume it now has corrupted sectors which I suppose is the cause of the problem. I'm hoping I haven't lost the use of this drive for good ... :'(

I should add that when I 'eject' this USB drive under DEVICES, it never completes the process, so I have to unplug it before its properly 'ejected'. When I unplug it I get the following message in the notification that appears on the display:

Code:
Failed to mount “SAMSUNG”

Error mounting /dev/sdb1 at /media/SAMSUNG: Command-line `mount -t "ntfs" -o "uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid,uid=500,gid=500" "/dev/sdb1" "/media/SAMSUNG"' exited with non-zero exit status 13: Error reading bootsector: Input/output error

Failed to sync device /dev/sdb1: Input/output error

Failed to mount '/dev/sdb1': Input/output error

NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a

SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows

then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very

important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate

it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g.

/dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation

for more details.

So, how can I force a mount so that the drive can be reformatted?
Many thanks, as always, for any help with this.

Mike

Have you tried to work with it under Disks?

Hello,

have you tried

Code:
sudo mount /dev/sdb/mnt

I made a post on the blog here - http://yeyelinux.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/...g-and.html

of how to mount manually, unmount, list device, and create FAt32 file system using terminal.

I had tried to use a installer for OSMC distro, and it had compatibility issues, it made the sd cards unmountable, unformatable, etc.
I couldn't do anything with them in Gparted or Disks, I also tried on Windows using the SD card official software.
Mostly the info I was given was the cards were trashed, unfixable.

I solved it using the method on the post above, (at end of post) in terminal on LL and they were usable again.
I then tried the commands on other device including USB flash drives and external portable drive, and it worked.
I didn't find this odd way/sequence of the commands anywhere online, and only the exact sequence worked on the corrupted ones, as I corrupted them again and tried all different possible orders for the commands.

Example it says not mounted you may try to work on it and it says it is mounted, because if it was not mounted then it would not be giving you any information about the drive, so it telling you the error it is not mounted/unable to mount it is not fully accurate.
So to format and create filesystem fresh/clean you will need to unmount it in terminal etc.

As you want to format it, it would be useful to play with the sequence on the post, you may also discover a different sequence of the same commands that fixes this error, that will help others in future.

Edit - similar to your drive, the sd cards once inserted when corrupt also could not be unmounted, as they were not even displaying in Home tree/menu.
By the sd cards working afterwards I mean I was able to install a full distro and use it many times on it without any issues.

The proprietary software that ships on these types of drives can interfere. I had to deal with this problem once but it's been so long I can't remember the sepcifics but I do remember the article I used. Take a look here, does this help?
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/passport-vcd.html

Many thanks for your thoughts Jerry, bitsnpcs & Scott

[member=2]Jerry[/member] - it did not show up under Disks, though does now following it being "fixed".

This is what I did in LL3.4 - a slightly different approach, gleaned from the PCLOS forum...
I highlighted Samsung under Devices in the file manager (I think it was right click).
I then pressed Ctrl + Esc and this appeared to mount the drive and show it's contents on the laptop display.

Having got that far, I opened gparted and wiped the drive by formatting as a GPT, with a single ext4 partition spanning the whole disk. Should I have done this or should I have a second partition of 2 to 3 MB of unallocated space at the end of the partition?

When I look at the drive under Disks, the Assessment states "Disk is OK, one bad sector"

One bad sector? Doesn't sound good - how do I get rid of this?

I seem unable to copy/paste files to the newly formatted 4TB disk as the paste option is greyed-out - how do I get the paste option to work?

It seems I still have a bit to go yet, though appear to be almost there - your continued advice on this one is much appreciated ...

[member=458]m654321[/member],

GPT (GUID Partition Table) is the way to go for volumes bigger than 2TB, so you are good there.

The one bad sector out of 4TB drive is not such a bad thing; it isn't necessarily the death knell for the drive. It is perfectly ok for a disk to have bad sectors as long as they aren't on the boot sector. Hard disk manufacturers hide the fact a brand new disk has bad blocks with the firmware, when you buy a brand new disk it will have in all probability bad blocks already, the firmware will detect newly grown badblocks and maps them out from a set of spare cylinders it has, but this only happens when a write operation occurs on that sector and the ECC algorithm detects bit failure, only then will it map the block out. If you notice a few months later that your drive has developed more bad sectors then it's time to start shopping for a replacement or sending it back (RMA). For now, I wouldn't bother.

With that said, I believe all you are missing at this point is the correct mount options to be able to read and write on that drive. Lite Manual has instructions you can follow to complete those steps. See:

https://www.linuxliteos.com/manual/insta...partdrives

(05-29-2017, 04:24 PM)ralphy link Wrote: [ -> ][member=458]m654321[/member],

https://www.linuxliteos.com/manual/insta...partdrives

I've just had a look at the link - looks like the ticket - many thanks Ralphy

Cheers
Mike

[member=6629]ralphy[/member]
I followed the link you gave above for mounting (and naming) the newly formatted external 4TB USB drive.
On plugging in this device, it automounts and opens as a window.

However, the paste option is still greyed in the drop-down box (as before), when I attempt to copy & paste files into the USB drive.

Maybe it's a permission I'm missing? Sorry if I'm missing the obvious here ...

It's likely file system is currently owned by root, therefore you can't write to it.

Plug in external drive, let it auto-mount, then close window.

Open a terminal and enter this command to find out what its mount point is:

Code:
lsblk -af

It will likely be something like "/media/4tb-drive", or "/media/username/4tb-drive". Substitute your mount point exactly as displayed by command above in place of my generic "/media/4tb-drive" and your actual username in place of "username" to set ownership to yourself instead of root.

Code:
sudo chown -R username: /media/4tb-drive

Now open drive again and you should be able to write to it.

@goldfinger
I can now copy files to the 4TB USB Samsung drive.
Sincere thanks goldfinger for your guidance in the last post Smile

Cheers
Mike

m654321

Valtam

bitsnpcs

Scott(0)

m654321

ralphy

m654321

m654321

gold_finger

m654321