[Ubuntu Netbook Remix] External Hard Drive Problems

[osieorb18]

Hello, I own an HP Mini with Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and a Western Digital 500 GB Portable External Hard Drive. I recently started to not be able to view the files on my external, with the message:

Cannot mount volume.

Unable to mount the volume 'Elements'.

Details
Failed to open $AttrDef: Input/output error Failed to mount '/dev/sdb1': Input/output error NTFS is either inconsistent, or you have hardware faults, or you have 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 you have SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first you must activate it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g. /dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation for the details.

I don't think I have any SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware, and I definitely don't run Windows.

Help?!? What do I do?!?

[D-cat]

This happens when an NTFS volume isn't properly unmounted before removing. You should somehow try to get that thing plugged in a Windows computer and run chkdsk on it in order to avoid corruption.

Considering you don't have Windows available to you at the moment, you can try ntfsfix /dev/sdb1 (you might have to run sudo apt-get install ntfsprogs first). It's not a replacement for chkdsk, but it might let you at least mount the drive and access your data.

...

If you have a Windows disc available, you can try using a windows VM with USB proxy to do the job.

...

If you have some other way of backing up the data on that drive, you can convert the filesystem to a Linux type (e.g. ext2) and not have to worry about that particular problem again. Con: you lose portability with Windows computers.

[osieorb18]

Considering you don't have Windows available to you at the moment, you can try ntfsfix /dev/sdb1 (you might have to run sudo apt-get install ntfsprogs first). It's not a replacement for chkdsk, but it might let you at least mount the drive and access your data.

I tried this just now, and got this result:

Mounting volume... Failed to open inode: Input/output error.
FAILED
Attempting to correct errors...
Processing $MFT and $MFTMirr...
Reading $MFT... OK
Reading $MFTMirr... OK
Comparing $MFTMirr to $MFT... OK
Processing of $MFT and $MFTMirr completed successfully.
Setting required flags on partition... OK
Going to empty the journal ($LogFile)... OK
Failed to open inode: Input/output error.
Remount failed: Input/output error.

Is there any sort of replacement for chkdsk?

[devils casper]

Post the output of sudo fdisk -l command here.

sudo fdisk -l

[osieorb18]

Output of "sudo fdisk -l":

Disk /dev/sda: 32.2 GB, 32296140800 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3926 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x2a39c2b8

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 3530 28354693+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 3531 3780 2008125 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3 3781 3926 1172745 1b Hidden W95 FAT32

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0005c2a9

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 60802 488386552 7 HPFS/NTFS

I have bolded the stuff about the hard drive.

[Rubberman]

As D-Cat said, this problem can occur when you remove an NTFS drive without doing the following:

1. Run the 'sync' command to flush all unwritten data to disc.
2. umount the file system.

In any case, I never recommend using an NTFS file system with Linux unless you also have to use the disc with Windows. I've done the same thing as you have, and lost data because I didn't sync the file systems first. The umount command should flush all unwritten data to disc, but it doesn't always seem to work with NTFS file systems.

[osieorb18]

In any case, I never recommend using an NTFS file system with Linux unless you also have to use the disc with Windows. I've done the same thing as you have, and lost data because I didn't sync the file systems first. The umount command should flush all unwritten data to disc, but it doesn't always seem to work with NTFS file systems.

Yeah, I will most likely never hook it up to a Windows computer, except for if I have to to fix it or something like that. How would I go about changing it to ext2?

[D-cat]

If you can manage, recover the current data to another hard drive (research recovery tools, e.g. photorec) You want this done first, the data will be absolutely unrecoverable after the next step.

Assuming you know what device the hard drive installed as (use sudo fdisk -l if unsure), you can use one of several tools to manage the task...

from the cli there's the classic fdisk [device] or for a sort of menu driven version cfdisk [device]. Clear the partition table, then add a new primary partition to take up the whole drive. Linux tools assume a default of linux type partition. Write the changes and exit.

A popular gui tool for the task is gPartEd, basically the same steps.

Then you need to format the new partition. I only suggested ext2 because you'll get an okay data rate without the journal. You can use ext3 for less chance of data corruption/better recoverability, but takes a heavy hit on your data throughput on external drives. Your choice. The comand is simply

sudo mkfs.ext2 -m 1 -L [label] [device]

You could also use an external journal file for the speed near ext2 and security of ext3, but you lose all portability (drive would be for that computer only). See man mke2fs for details.

Once the drive is formatted, you should be able to mount and use it as normal in any Linux based system (sans external journal format... though you should stillbe able to mount read-only safely on other computers).

[hatebreed]

I would try to use wine and get paragon partition manager from download.cnet.com. I've used this in the past and it works great. I do believe it does linux partitions as well as all the windows partitions too. It is free also.

[D-cat]

WINE can't access block devices directly by design.