External Hard Drive Error

asterios_polyp

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Running Linux Mint 19.2 Cinnamon.

I have an external hard drive (exfat) mounted on my linux machine. I needed something off moved to my windows machine, so I pulled it and plugged it into my windows machine. Windows machine recognized it, and I can access all files. Unplugged it from the windows machine and put it back in the linux machine and no dice. I can access the file structure, see everything, but when I try to open any of the .mkv's I get an error. The VLC log shows an Input/Output error, a pre-fill buffer error, and a cannot peek error. I am hoping this is a simple thing that I screwed up and can be fixed easily. Ideas?

When I try to copy and paste a file from the drive on linux, I get an error splicing file: input/output.

More info: lsblk shows the drive (I can tell by size), but it is not named like the other drives.
 
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You should check/repair this partition using a tool called gparted, this can fox your problem.
is it only this one file which does not work? Or also others?
 
I don't use Mint so some of this guessing.
Are you using a 5.5 kernel of newer? If not you'll likely need the fuse-exfat tools.
(Might be named slightly different in Mint).
 
Thanks for the quick replies! I will try out gparted and see what it comes up with. Since I am able to access everything on the windows machine, I am making sure backups are up to date before I try anything.

It looks like I am using an older kernal - 4.15.0-72. I am new to linux and have never updated a kernal before - I found directions on how to do it - is there any risk to this or is it as common as a windows update? Maybe I will start with fuse-exfat and see if that helps.
 
I am new to linux and have never updated a kernal before..... is there any risk to this or is it as common as a windows update?
Yes, there is a risk. But most generally it is a small risk. Probably less than a Windows update (much less than Windows 10!) but there is always the chance that a kernel update may bork something.
That is why is is highly recommended that you always keep an older kernel installed as a backup - just in case. If a newer kernel does not play nice with your machine you can fall back to a known good kernel.

Incremental kernel updates in Linux Mint are "usually" painless, smooth, and safe.
 
Thanks for the great answers everyone! Now I have a noob question about kernals vs os updates.

I am running Mint 19.2 Cinn. I see there is an update for Mint 19.3 Cinn available.

I also see that I have kernal 4.15.0-72-generic, but like dos2unix said, there is kernal update 5.5 available.

It looks like Mint 19.3 Cinn comes with kernal 5.0. Should I update to 19.3 first and then update kernal to 5.5 after?
 
Thanks for the great answers everyone! Now I have a noob question about kernals vs os updates.

I am running Mint 19.2 Cinn. I see there is an update for Mint 19.3 Cinn available.

I also see that I have kernal 4.15.0-72-generic, but like dos2unix said, there is kernal update 5.5 available.

It looks like Mint 19.3 Cinn comes with kernal 5.0. Should I update to 19.3 first and then update kernal to 5.5 after?
If you upgrade from Mint 19.2 to Mint 19.3 I believe the Mint 19.3 will bring in the 5.* kernel but you will still be using the 4.15.* kernel. It's an odd situation. A fresh install of Mint 19.3 will have only the 5.* series kernel.

Install all updates to 19.2 first then upgrade to 19.3.
After the upgrade check in Update Manager to which kernel you are using. It should still be the 4.15.* but the 5.* may also be installed. You can switch to the 5.* kernel and reboot - BUT - keep an older (4.15.*) kernel installed just in case the newer 5.* kernel does not play nice with your machine.

Doesn't hurt anything to keep two or three older kernels installed.

P.S. Some "Linux Gurus" advise not switching to a newer kernel if everything is working fine. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
I have a Seagate Expansion+ 1TB USB external HDD. One day everything did not work on the external USB HDD in the root directory (the directory that first loads/shows up when first plugged in). I could not copy, paste, rename ETC on that drive. The drive showed up in linux but couldn't do anything with the file or folders. So I tried to fix it using Mint apps. Like Gparted, Disks, fsck, badblocks, ntfsfix ETC and nothing worked. So I borrowed a relatives Windows 10 Dell and tried using (chkdsk /f /r /x) on it at the CMD prompt. After about 4hrs of running the disk worked perfectly. I guess the file system (NTFS) was corrupted. Hope this helps some one out in the future.
Thanks.
 
NTFS is dirty. I avoid it entirely with linux.
 

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