External Hard Drive Not Mounting

**Euralis** · 03-22-2008

Hey do any of u guys know why an external hard drive would not be detected by debian?

Its seriously as though it does not even know its there. I know the hard drive is functional because it works on several other computers as well. I never had this problem with it when I ran SUSE, but personally, I suspect its some sort of driver issue. The external hard drive is a 120gb Seagate.

Any Ideas?

Thanks for taking the time to read this you all.
Good Day.

**MikeTbob** · 03-22-2008

How do you know Debian doesn't see the Drive? Can you see it with the command line? Issue this command as root and post the results here, if you don't understand.

Code:

fdisk -l

(lower case L)
I believe with Debian, you need to mount it manually and if you want it available on boot, then you need to edit /etc/fstab to include the External drive.

**Euralis** · 03-22-2008

I did as you asked and this is what I got:

mikeshome:/home/michael# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 300.0 GB, 300069052416 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36481 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 36305 291619881 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 36306 36481 1413720 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 36306 36481 1413688+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 14593 117218241 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

I am not that knowledagble about the command yet, but this is what I tried:

mikeshome:/home/michael# cd /dev
mikeshome:/dev# mount sda1
mount: can't find /dev/sda1 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab

**Jonathan183** · 03-22-2008

Ok with root access rights ...
make a folder to mount the drive to eg /manmount

Code:

mkdir /manmount

now mount the drive lets say its sda1

Code:

mount /dev/sda1 /manmount

If you want the mount to happen automatically and you will have the drive connected when you boot the system (every time you boot - otherwise it will throw errors) you can copy the line from /etc/mtab to /etc/fstab.

Ed: Because this folder is in / normal users will not be able to read/write unless you change properties of the folder. Is the PC just for you or do you want others to be able to access the drive as well? PC just for you then you can use chown your_user_name /manmount which should give you access.

**Euralis** · 03-22-2008

Thank you so much.

This problem has been a minor nuissance for me for a while now. I am glad this is now resolved.

This computer is just for me by the way. Curious though, what is chown?-- I am not familliar with that command.

But thanks again man.

**MikeTbob** · 03-22-2008

chown= change owner
Use the terminal/konsole window to find out more about any Linux command with the "man" command
man chown
man chgrp

**Jonathan183** · 03-22-2008

Glad it works for you.

Change owner ... try

Code:

man chown

and if you want some more info on CLI try this.

**Euralis** · 03-23-2008

thanks man, you may be the most helpfull person on here for me yet.

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