Ubuntu

Why is one Seagate USB drive automatically mounted but the other is not?

Asked by Endolith

I have two external Seagate USB hard drives. Same size (160 GB), but different models:

/dev/disk/by-id/ lists them as such:

usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SG062016823-0:0
usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SG062016823-0:0-part1
usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SG062016823-0:0-part2
usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SG062016823-0:0-part3
usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SG062016823-0:0-part4
usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SG062016823-0:0-part5
usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SG062016823-0:0-part6
usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SG062016823-0:0-part7
usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SG062016823-0:0-part8
usb-ST316002_3A_3JS40TGA0000-0:0
usb-ST316002_3A_3JS40TGA0000-0:0-part1

In Edgy, I believe both were recognized when plugged in, automatically mounted, and showed up in the "Computer" window. After upgrading to Feisty, and now on another computer with a fresh Feisty install, only the "Seagate_External_Drive" (ST3160203U2-RK) is automatically mounted. It has several partitions; NTFS, FAT, ext3.

The ST3160026ARK drive is not automatically mounted, though, and it should be. It has a single FAT partition. I can mount the partition manually with pmount, but I want them both to be recognized automatically in the same way.

I have been told to edit my fstab in the past, but I don't understand how this has anything to do with it, since other external drives are automatically mounted without being spelled out explicitly in the fstab. This should be controlled by the "Removable Drives and Media Preferences", not by fstab.

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Dmitry Mityugov (dmitry-mityugov) said : 		#1

A single FAT partition - of which type? Is it FAT-16, or FAT-32? How big is it?

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Endolith (endolith) said : 		#2

FAT-32, taking up the entire drive = ~160 GB

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Dmitry Mityugov (dmitry-mityugov) said : 		#3

Well, the only idea I have is that the problem is caused by the size of the partition on ST3160026ARK drive.

Could you delete this big partition, please, and create a smaller one, similar to a FAT partition on drive ST3160203U2-RK? Is this new partition mounted automatically?

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Endolith (endolith) said : 		#4

I'm not going to delete, it, no. :-) I'll see if I can find a way to resize it or something.

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Launchpad Janitor (janitor) said : 		#5

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.

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Endolith (endolith) said : 		#6

I'm not going to delete my partition, but are there log files or something that might illuminate the problem?

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Launchpad Janitor (janitor) said : 		#7

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.

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Endolith (endolith) said : 		#8

I got sick of this not mounting and just forced it with a line in my fstab:

/dev/sdb1 /media/Seagate vfat defaults 0 0

I had to create the /media/Seagate directory with sudo. It seems to automatically mount now, but it doesn't show up in the "Computer" view, and it seems as though the permissions for this and other partitions have been changed to "root" and I can't access them anymore? What should the default permissions be for partitions like this, and how do I change them?

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Launchpad Janitor (janitor) said : 		#9

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.

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Endolith (endolith) said : 		#10

Still doesn't work in Gutsy, by the way.

Obviously this is related to hot plug and "Removable Drives and Media Preferences", but I don't know how to troubleshoot it.

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Launchpad Janitor (janitor) said : 		#11

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.

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Endolith (endolith) said : 		#12

I still need help with this. It's been MONTHS since it stopped working. I've uploaded the troubleshooting information in the bug report.

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Phil Richards (news-derived-software) said : 		#13

Your partition is so large that the sector size is (probably) 8192. vol_id (from the udev package) does not recognise this as a valid size, and so doesn't report a volume ID. So... udev doesn't mount it.

See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/udev/+bug/147807

Phil

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Endolith (endolith) said : 		#14

I also have the NTFS partition that is not auto-mounting, though.

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Endolith (endolith) said : 		#15

This appears to have been a combination of the "usefree" option and a missing FSINFO sector. Neither solution worked by themselves, but together, it auto-mounts now when I log in. Finally.

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Endolith (endolith) said : 		#16

To reiterate:

1. Check the disk with "dosfsck -r /dev/sdb2". Create an FSINFO sector
2. Start gconf-editor and navigate to system > storage > default_options > vfat. Remove the "usefree" option.