Mewbie Question Mounting External Drive

[aperla]

I have a USB external drive...Xubuntu does not automatically mount the drive...I donj'y know the command to mount it under command line...all those that I have found don't seem to work....at one point...my computer says the that "only Root can do that"...I am the only account on the computer...I have never set up a root account...I thought my login would be root.....

Any advice????

Thank you

[Segfault]

Root account is not an user account. You use it only when managing your system. To get a clue what we are dealing here with do following.

Open a teminal window.
Type sudo tail -f /var/log/messages (this will open the system log).
Plug in your USB drive.
See what messages appear in system log.

[aperla]

Root account is not an user account. You use it only when managing your system. To get a clue what we are dealing here with do following.

Open a teminal window.
Type sudo tail -f /var/log/messages (this will open the system log).
Plug in your USB drive.
See what messages appear in system log.

Thank you for helping. I did what you said. Here are the results.

linux@ubuntu:~$ sudo tail -f /var/log/messages
Jul 28 21:40:58 ubuntu kernel: [ 718.085068] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Unrecovered read error
Jul 28 21:40:58 ubuntu kernel: [ 718.085076] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 0
Jul 28 21:40:58 ubuntu kernel: [ 718.170941] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK
Jul 28 21:40:58 ubuntu kernel: [ 718.170954] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense Key : Medium Error [current]
Jul 28 21:40:58 ubuntu kernel: [ 718.170961] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Unrecovered read error
Jul 28 21:40:58 ubuntu kernel: [ 718.170969] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 0
Jul 28 21:40:58 ubuntu kernel: [ 1077.330772] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK
Jul 28 21:40:58 ubuntu kernel: [ 1077.330789] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense Key : Medium Error [current]
Jul 28 21:40:58 ubuntu kernel: [ 1077.330799] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Unrecovered read error
Jul 28 21:40:58 ubuntu kernel: [ 1077.330810] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 0


Let me know what you think

[aperla]

After much hunting around the house I found a USB thumb drive that loads perfectly...I am assuming that the external HD must have a bad connector...I will also have to try it on another computer.....Segfault...thank you for your interest...I appreciate it muchly...

[D-cat]

Jul 28 21:40:58 ubuntu kernel: [ 1077.330799] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Unrecovered read error
Jul 28 21:40:58 ubuntu kernel: [ 1077.330810] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 0

Does this hard drive work on any other computers? What I'm reading there looks like a failed hard disk, but it could also be a controller compatibility issue (as rare as those are).