Accessing an external hard drive on ubuntu linux

[ubuntu-users mailing list]

Hello I have an external drive connecting to ubuntu. I can see the icon for the drive on my desktop but can’t access the files on the drive?
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[Volker Wysk]

Am Freitag, den 12.02.2021, 19:06 -0800 schrieb M.R.P. zensky via ubuntu-
users:
> Hello I have an external drive connecting to ubuntu. I can see the icon for the drive on my desktop but can’t access the files on the drive?

Do you have installed the exfat-utils package?

Volker

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[Bret Busby]

On 13/2/21 11:06 am, M.R.P. zensky via ubuntu-users wrote:
> Hello I have an external drive connecting to ubuntu. I can see the icon for the drive on my desktop but can’t access the files on the drive?
>

Exactly what is the "external drive"?

Is it a 16GB USB thumb drive, or is it a 2000 terabyte drive?

Also, what version of Ubuntu are you using?

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[Bret Busby]

On 13/2/21 1:05 pm, Volker Wysk wrote:
> Am Freitag, den 12.02.2021, 19:06 -0800 schrieb M.R.P. zensky via ubuntu-
> users:
>> Hello I have an external drive connecting to ubuntu. I can see the icon for the drive on my desktop but can’t access the files on the drive?
>
> Do you have installed the exfat-utils package?
>
> Volker
>
>


My experience is that the xFAT driver has been present by default, in
Ubuntu Linux, since 12.04 .

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..............


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[Volker Wysk]

Am Samstag, den 13.02.2021, 13:43 +0800 schrieb Bret Busby:
> On 13/2/21 1:05 pm, Volker Wysk wrote:
> > Am Freitag, den 12.02.2021, 19:06 -0800 schrieb M.R.P. zensky via ubuntu-
> > users:
> > > Hello I have an external drive connecting to ubuntu. I can see the icon for the drive on my desktop but can’t access the files on the drive?
> >
> > Do you have installed the exfat-utils package?
>
> My experience is that the xFAT driver has been present by default, in
> Ubuntu Linux, since 12.04 .

I have a different experience. It wasn't installed by default in Ubuntu and
Xubuntu...

Bye,
Volker

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[Bret Busby]

On 13/2/21 1:51 pm, Volker Wysk wrote:

> Am Samstag, den 13.02.2021, 13:43 +0800 schrieb Bret Busby:
>> On 13/2/21 1:05 pm, Volker Wysk wrote:
>>> Am Freitag, den 12.02.2021, 19:06 -0800 schrieb M.R.P. zensky via ubuntu-
>>> users:
>>>> Hello I have an external drive connecting to ubuntu. I can see the icon for the drive on my desktop but can’t access the files on the drive?
>>>
>>> Do you have installed the exfat-utils package?
>>
>> My experience is that the xFAT driver has been present by default, in
>> Ubuntu Linux, since 12.04 .
>
> I have a different experience. It wasn't installed by default in Ubuntu and
> Xubuntu...
>
> Bye,
> Volker
>
>

Ah.

Maybe it is a feature of UbuntuMATE?

Although, I am not sure whether 12.04 was UbuntuMATE, or, was Ubuntu
running gnome2.

I do remember, that, with a Samsunsung T5 SSD (and, each one after the
first one - I have a few, now), it has been simply "Plug and Play", with
no drivers needing to be installed, for the exFAT or xFAT filesystem
(whichever of the two, is correct - I am not sure).

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[Colin Watson]

On Sat, Feb 13, 2021 at 02:32:04PM +0800, Bret Busby wrote:

> On 13/2/21 1:51 pm, Volker Wysk wrote:
> > Am Samstag, den 13.02.2021, 13:43 +0800 schrieb Bret Busby:
> > > On 13/2/21 1:05 pm, Volker Wysk wrote:
> > > > Do you have installed the exfat-utils package?
> > >
> > > My experience is that the xFAT driver has been present by default, in
> > > Ubuntu Linux, since 12.04 .
> >
> > I have a different experience. It wasn't installed by default in Ubuntu and
> > Xubuntu...
>
> Ah.
>
> Maybe it is a feature of UbuntuMATE?
>
> Although, I am not sure whether 12.04 was UbuntuMATE, or, was Ubuntu running
> gnome2.

Ubuntu MATE didn't exist until 15.04 (or maybe 14.10, but if that
existed I think it was an unofficial release).

I'm not sure how you got it by default in 12.04, as exfat-utils doesn't
seem to show up in the list of packages installed by default there.
Perhaps this is some kind of special case, or perhaps I'm missing
something, or perhaps you're misremembering; I'm not sure which.

exfat-utils currently seems to be installed by default by Ubuntu MATE
and Ubuntu Kylin, but not the other flavours.  At one point we
explicitly decided not to include it by default in Ubuntu due to patent
licensing concerns [1].  Later, Microsoft announced that they were
supporting integration of the kernel side of exFAT into the Linux kernel
[2] [3]; it's possible that may change Ubuntu's view of things, though I
wouldn't be surprised if we wanted to run it past internal legal review
first.  (It's not something that I personally have the time or
motivation to push for.)

[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/exfat-utils/+bug/1649537
[2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/tech-licensing/programs?activetab=pivot1:primaryr5
[3] https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/opensource/2019/08/28/exfat-linux-kernel/

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[Liam Proven]

On Sat, 13 Feb 2021 at 06:53, Volker Wysk <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Am Samstag, den 13.02.2021, 13:43 +0800 schrieb Bret Busby:
> >
> > My experience is that the xFAT driver has been present by default, in
> > Ubuntu Linux, since 12.04 .
>
> I have a different experience. It wasn't installed by default in Ubuntu and
> Xubuntu...

Volker is correct. I have never seen any version of Ubuntu that had it built-in.

Until 2019 it was encumbered code:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT#Other_implementations



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[ubuntu-users mailing list]

Drive is a 2 TB external hooked up via usb. I installed expat utils and still. Am able to see the files but cannot work with them.

> On Feb 12, 2021, at 9:43 PM, Bret Busby <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> On 13/2/21 1:05 pm, Volker Wysk wrote:
>> Am Freitag, den 12.02.2021, 19:06 -0800 schrieb M.R.P. zensky via ubuntu-
>> users:
>>> Hello I have an external drive connecting to ubuntu. I can see the icon for the drive on my desktop but can’t access the files on the drive?
>> Do you have installed the exfat-utils package?
>> Volker
>
>
> My experience is that the xFAT driver has been present by default, in Ubuntu Linux, since 12.04 .
>
> --
> Bret Busby
> Armadale
> West Australia
> (UTC+0800)
> ..............
>
>
> --
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[Volker Wysk]

Am Samstag, den 13.02.2021, 16:10 -0800 schrieb M.R.P. zensky via ubuntu-
users:
> Drive is a 2 TB external hooked up via usb. I installed expat utils and
> still. Am able to see the files but cannot work with them.

Please be a little more precise. Can you read the files, but not write? What
exactly happens, when you try to work with them? Is there an error message?

Have you formated the drive with a new file system, or is it still in its
original state? Were you able to "work with your files" on that drive
before?

You've written before, that you can't access the files at all. So you've
installed exfat-utils, and now you can at least see them?

And please don't top-post in mailing lists.

Bye,
Volker

>
> > On Feb 12, 2021, at 9:43 PM, Bret Busby <[hidden email]> wrote:
> >
> > On 13/2/21 1:05 pm, Volker Wysk wrote:
> > > Am Freitag, den 12.02.2021, 19:06 -0800 schrieb M.R.P. zensky via ubuntu-
> > > users:
> > > > Hello I have an external drive connecting to ubuntu. I can see the icon for the drive on my desktop but can’t access the files on the drive?
> > > Do you have installed the exfat-utils package?
> > > Volker
> >
> > My experience is that the xFAT driver has been present by default, in Ubuntu Linux, since 12.04 .
> >
> > --
> > Bret Busby
> > Armadale
> > West Australia
> > (UTC+0800)
> > ..............
> >
> >
> > --
> > ubuntu-users mailing list
> > [hidden email]
> > Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
>
>

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[ubuntu-users mailing list]

On Sun, 14 Feb 2021 07:22:36 +0100, Volker Wysk wrote:

>Am Samstag, den 13.02.2021, 16:10 -0800 schrieb M.R.P. zensky:
>> Drive is a 2 TB external hooked up via usb. I installed expat utils
>> and still. Am able to see the files but cannot work with them.  
>
>Please be a little more precise. Can you read the files, but not
>write? What exactly happens, when you try to work with them? Is there
>an error message?
>
>Have you formated the drive with a new file system, or is it still in
>its original state? Were you able to "work with your files" on that
>drive before?
>
>You've written before, that you can't access the files at all. So
>you've installed exfat-utils, and now you can at least see them?
>
>And please don't top-post in mailing lists.

Hi,

disconnect the USB drive and run

  sudo parted -l > /tmp/disconnected_usb_drive.log 2>&1

Connect the USB drive and run

  sudo parted -l > /tmp/is_connected_usb_drive.log 2>&1

after that run

  diff /tmp/disconnected_usb_drive.log /tmp/is_connected_usb_drive.log

and copy and paste the commands + their outputs, to send all of it to
the list. What you post should look similar to [1].

If you should use Ubuntu flavour defaults and you click or double-click
the drive icon on your desktop (click or double-click it now), then
IIRC the drive should be mounted inside of /media/$USER/ , maybe I'm
mistaken and it's /media/$HOSTNAME/ , but this would make less sense
than $USER/ already does. However run

 sudo ls -ld /media/
 sudo ls -lA /media/
 sudo ls -lA /media/*/

copy and paste the commands + the complete outputs and send it to the
mailing list. It should look similar to [2]. I snipped the parts of the
output, since I'm not using the "click an icon on the desktop to mount
everything with some default mount options to some default mount point
by some default name pattern" approach.

Regards,
Ralf


[1]
[rocketmouse@archlinux ~]$ sudo parted -l > /tmp/disconnected_usb_drive.log 2>&1
[sudo] password for rocketmouse:
[rocketmouse@archlinux ~]$ sudo parted -l > /tmp/is_connected_usb_drive.log 2>&1
[rocketmouse@archlinux ~]$ diff /tmp/disconnected_usb_drive.log /tmp/is_connected_usb_drive.log
#74a75,86

> Model: Intenso Ultra Line (scsi)
> Disk /dev/sdf: 31.5GB
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
> Partition Table: msdos
> Disk Flags:
>
> Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
>  1      1049kB  17.1GB  17.1GB  primary  ext4         boot
>  2      17.1GB  17.2GB  33.6MB  primary  fat16        esp
>  3      17.2GB  31.5GB  14.3GB  primary  fat32
>
>

[2]
[rocketmouse@archlinux ~]$  sudo ls -ld /media/
[sudo] password for rocketmouse:
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 14 03:11 /media/
[rocketmouse@archlinux ~]$ sudo ls -lA /media/
[snip]
[rocketmouse@archlinux ~]$ sudo ls -lA /media/*/
[snip]

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[ubuntu-users mailing list]

On Sun, 14 Feb 2021 10:08:48 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

>disconnect the USB drive and run
>
>  sudo parted -l > /tmp/disconnected_usb_drive.log 2>&1
>
>Connect the USB drive and run
>
>  sudo parted -l > /tmp/is_connected_usb_drive.log 2>&1
>
>after that run
>
>  diff /tmp/disconnected_usb_drive.log /tmp/is_connected_usb_drive.log
>
>and copy and paste the commands + their outputs, to send all of it to
>the list. What you post should look similar to [1].
>
>If you should use Ubuntu flavour defaults and you click or double-click
>the drive icon on your desktop (click or double-click it now), then
>IIRC the drive should be mounted inside of /media/$USER/ , maybe I'm
>mistaken and it's /media/$HOSTNAME/ , but this would make less sense
>than $USER/ already does. However run
>
> sudo ls -ld /media/
> sudo ls -lA /media/
> sudo ls -lA /media/*/
>
>copy and paste the commands + the complete outputs and send it to the
>mailing list. It should look similar to [2]. I snipped the parts of the
>output, since I'm not using the "click an icon on the desktop to mount
>everything with some default mount options to some default mount point
>by some default name pattern" approach.

PS:

After you clicked or double-clicked the drive icon to mount
the drive, also run

  mount

then copy, paste and post again.

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[ubuntu-users mailing list]

On Sun, 14 Feb 2021 10:35:52 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
>On Sun, 14 Feb 2021 10:08:48 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
>>  sudo parted -l > /tmp/disconnected_usb_drive.log 2>&1
>>  sudo parted -l > /tmp/is_connected_usb_drive.log 2>&1
>>  diff /tmp/disconnected_usb_drive.log /tmp/is_connected_usb_drive.log

>> sudo ls -ld /media/
>> sudo ls -lA /media/
>> sudo ls -lA /media/*/

>  mount

PPS:

If so far mount options and privileges should be ok, but the file
system shouldn't be some FAT, but maybe some EXT or HFS etc., you could
take a look at the files and directories on the drive by running

  ls -lA /media/*/*
  lsattr /media/*/*

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