external hard drive problem

[coldleg]

hello

i am using ubuntu and bought a external hard drive. it's not working and i looked on the internet how to solve this problem but i am new to linux and can't solve it.

i think about switching to another linux version which can handle external hard drive better and easier.

has someone an idea wich distribution i should use?

[devils casper]

Hi and Welcome !

Ubuntu recognize External Disks perfectly and its one of the best distro.
Open Terminal and execute this

sudo fdisk -l
df -h

Post output of both commands here.

[coldleg]

sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 7108 57094978+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 7109 7296 1510110 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 7109 7296 1510078+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

df -h

Dateisystem Größe Benut Verf Ben% Eingehängt auf
/dev/hda1 54G 51G 475M 100% /
varrun 252M 92K 252M 1% /var/run
varlock 252M 0 252M 0% /var/lock
procbususb 10M 124K 9,9M 2% /proc/bus/usb
udev 10M 124K 9,9M 2% /dev
devshm 252M 0 252M 0% /dev/shm
lrm 252M 18M 235M 7% /lib/modules/2.6.17-12-generic/volatile

but hda: 60.0 GB is the hard drive in my computer on which linux is

[devils casper]

Did you plug-in External Hard Disk while executing fdisk command?

[coldleg]

i' m not sure, probably not, because i tried it again and now it looks like this

sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 7108 57094978+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 7109 7296 1510110 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 7109 7296 1510078+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 60801 488384001 7 HPFS/NTFS

df -h is still the same

Dateisystem Größe Benut Verf Ben% Eingehängt auf
/dev/hda1 54G 51G 475M 100% /
varrun 252M 92K 252M 1% /var/run
varlock 252M 0 252M 0% /var/lock
procbususb 10M 124K 9,9M 2% /proc/bus/usb
udev 10M 124K 9,9M 2% /dev
devshm 252M 0 252M 0% /dev/shm
lrm 252M 18M 235M 7% /lib/modules/2.6.17-12-generic/volatile

[devils casper]

/dev/sda1 is your External HD.
Ubuntu supports NTFS read access out of box. You have to install ntfs-3g package to enable NTFS write access.
Execute this

sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g

Create mount_point ( folder ) and mount External HD.

sudo mkdir /media/sda1

You have to execute mkdir command once only.

To mount External HD, execute this

sudo mount -t ntfs-3g  /dev/sda1  /media/sda1 -o defaults,umask=0
ls /media/sda1

Check /media/sda1 folder.

Execute this code before unplugging External HD.

sudo umount /dev/sda1

[coldleg]

omg it's working
THANK YOU SO MUCH