Linux – mount external harddrive

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Posted on March 15, 2015

1) Run Fdisk -l
locate the drive normally /dev/sda

2)After attempting to mount a new external drive. You may receive the following error
mount /dev/sdb /mnt/usb
mount: /dev/sdb is write-protected, mounting read-only
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error

In some cases useful info is found in syslog – try
dmesg | tail or so.

Check dmesg for additional information. In our test case
[ 233.208934] sd 5:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[ 233.209736] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] 1953525168 512-byte logical blocks: (1.00 TB/931 GiB)
[ 233.210483] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 233.210488] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
[ 233.211572] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
[ 233.211579] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 233.240389] sdb: unknown partition table
[ 233.242889] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk

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Run fdisk to create a partition

fdisk /dev/sdb

Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.24.2).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.

Device does not contain a recognized partition table.

Created a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x1422e789.

use the n menu option to create a new partition and except the defaults.

3) format the new partition. in our case /dev/sdb1

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1

Then mount
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb/

Categories: Linux Maintenance