On 11/26/17 01:37, bd wrote:
WD P/N : WD10000H 1Q
S/N : WCAU4D 164675
is about 4 or 5 years old. It is an external drive using external power
supply. At start, I had formatted it in ext3, so that I 'd be able to
storage videofiles larger than 2 Gb. Since then, I storaged a number of
files in several directories, subdirectories etc.. I never had any
problem until now.
This drive no longer mounts.
Were there any events immediately prior to this change -- power outage,
dropped the external drive, updated software, installed software,
changed system configuration settings, etc.?
It does not mount automatically as it used
to, and I don't know how to mount it manually. My other similar drives
mount on /dev/sdb1 or /dev/sr0... depending on to which computer I mount
it. In case it doesn't automatically mount, I just type :
#mount /dev/sdb1 /media/bd/ext
and it works
That incantation might work, if the external drive is assigned to
/dev/sdb by the kernel, the HDD has a partition table, the ext3 file
system is in the first partition, and the directory /media/bd/ext
exists. But, the /media directory is usually managed by automount
software, so messing with it could cause problems. I typically put my
mount points under /mnt.
but right now I don't know for sure the device name to mount.
If I list my /dev directory using ls -lt, I can see what new device
appears in the list whenever I plug my external drive. It shows 'sdb'.
Not 'sdb1' as for other external drives, just 'sdb'. If now I type :
# mount /dev/sdb /media/bd/ext
That would be correct only if you put the ext3 file system directly on
the raw drive without a partition table. As you stated it used to mount
automatically, that implies a partition table. Therefore, this
incantation is likely wrong.
this gets the external drive to react : the light goes up and down for
awhile, and then I get this message :
'you must specify the filesystem'
But, if I try :
# mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb /media/bd/ext
I get this : 'wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb…'
Also, likely a wrong incantation.
same result if I try mounting on 'fat', 'msdos'… filesystems, but I
doubt if there are any FAT or msdos space left on this device since I
had reformated it to ext3.
At last, I tried :
# fsck /dev/sdb (the external drive starts to light, then :
'fsck ext2 : superblock invalid. Trying to backup blocks
fsck ext2 : bad magic number in superblock while trying to open /dev/sdb
Also, likely a wrong incantation; and dangerous. Hopefully, fsck(8)
didn't overwrite any bits on disk.
Now, if I type :
cat /proc/scsi/scsi
I get this :
scsi0 ATA MAXTOR STM
scsi1 ATA MAXTOR STM
scsi5 WD My Book Direct Access
So, the kernel can see the drive at least part of the time.
/etc/fstab
does not show any sdb device
/etc/fstab typically contains entries created by the installer and by
the system administrator (you). Automatic mounting should not modify
this file.
How am I to get this drive back to operation, or, at least, to
recuperate the datafiles that are stored in that WD external drive ?
Thanks in advance to tell me what diagnosis and repair tools I could use
All the software in the world won't help you if the hardware is failing
-- the external power supply could be bad, the electronics in the
plastic box could be bad, or the drive could be bad. I've seen all three.
Download and run WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostic to verify the external
drive:
https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx
Reply with the results.
David