External USB Hard Disc Recovery

I have an external USB drive that stopped functioning. I took out the hard drive and added it on the second IDE controller on my Linux (SUSE) desktop, thinking that maybe the drive is OK and the wrapper is bad.

When I go to mount the drive, I'm not sure what File System Type to specify. I tried mounting with some of the more common ones, reiserfs, ext2, ntfs, etc, but none of these worked. I tried usbfs and it mounted but nothing of significance show up on the drive. Any way to tell on a hard drive what the file system type is BEFORE you mount it?

try FAT32 fs. Most USB drives are formatted with it.

Check the output of fdisk -l command to find out FileSystem of USB Drive.
Use vfat option for FAT32 FileSystem in mount command.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Results of 'fdisk -l' are:

Disk /dev/hdb: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1 38913 312568641 7 HPFS/NTFS

So, I tried mounting the drive using both HPFS and NTFS, but not go. I get the following errors:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~
NTFS-fs warning (device hdb): is_boot_sector_ntfs(): Invalid boot sector checksum.
NTFS-fs error (device hdb): read_ntfs_boot_sector(): Primary boot sector is invalid.
NTFS-fs error (device hdb): read_ntfs_boot_sector(): Mount option errors=recover not used. Aborting without trying to recover.
NTFS-fs error (device hdb): ntfs_fill_super(): Not an NTFS volume.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~

And this one when I try and use HPFS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HPFS: Bad magic ... probably not HPFS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If I try fat, I get this error:

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VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev hdb.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Could you post exact command that you executed to mount hdb?