external hard drive works in windows 10 but wont work in linux

JOHNOH

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external hard drive works in windows 10 but wont work in linux
 


G'day JOHNOH, Welcome to Linux.org

It would be really good if your post had taken more than .5 of a second to read

Bit it didn't

We need detail.

Which linux are you running?

What is your pc?...specs would be good

What have you already tried ?

Has the ext hd been reformatted/changed in any way?...ever?

Any other info which may help us to help you.
 
I'm running Linux Mint 20.2. My PC is Acer Swift 3. When it could not be recognized in Mint I formatted it to fat32, hoping that might be recognizable. I have other hard drives which work perfectly in Windows or Linux,
 
Do you a os on that external drive? OR> files?
Has the drive been formatted or reformatted like Condobloke asked?

I think you need NTFS for Linux.

 
Last edited:
Use GParted

If it is not in the menu (under gparted) then you can either install it from Software Manager (click on menu and type in software manager), or in Terminal.....:
Code:
sudo apt install gparted

Plug the external hard drive in.

Once you have opened GParted, in the top right hand corner there is a drop down menu which should show the various hard drives/ssd's etc..
Once you have selected the correct drive (make sure!!!)...Click on Device, (menu item across the top) and then click on Create Partition Table. Choose GPT.
The right click in the main pane, or better still Select NEW (under Partition) and create/make a partition in EXT4 format.

In the section at top...there are GParted-Edit-View-Device-partition-Help......just below the word Partition, there is s tick ...click on that, and you will be asked if you want to procedd with those actions and offers all sorts of dire warning re loss of data etc etc....click on OK
It will not take long...couple of minutes should see it done.

Exit from GParted. (just close it.)

Then, launch Disks (menu, type in disks)

From here we can Edit the Mount options.

There is a small cog wheel
just below the partition/disk you wish to mount at startup.

click on the cog wheel.....Then click on Edit Mount Options.

Then toggle the 'Switch' (at the top) to OFF.......so that the disk will be mounted at startup

Click OK in bottom right hand corner....this will exit disks, and it will also auto modify /etc/fstab so that the additional disk will be mounted every time you reboot.
 
I have tried Gparted. Once the drive is plugged in, gparted recognizes that there is another device there, but just keeps going on and on without ever getting anywhere.
 
just keeps going on and on without ever getting anywhere.
What does that mean ?

Have you followed the detailed instructions I left for you?
 
now this may sound a silly question,is the external harddrive bootable [dose it have an OS on it]?
then have you opened the short boot manager [F8/F10/F12/delete whichever is applicable to your machine] to see if the bios has recognised it?
if so highlight the drive and enter, this should open the OS on the drive [will not work if the drive is storage only]
 
Since OP already formatted the drive as FAT32 wouldn't lsusb see it?
OR> show in the output of
lsblk -f
?
 
Just my opinion for what it is worth - but I usually format external hard drives to exFAT or ext4 if I want to encrypt it with LUKS - so if I have a file larger then 4GB I can transfer it - also exFAT can be seen by MAC, Windows or Linux - on Linux you will need to install exfat-fuse and exfat-utils which you can get through the Synaptic Package Manager - also I believe Linux Mint has Gnome Disk Utility already install (Disks) so you do not need GParted to format you can use Disks to format it works really well
 
I have tried Gparted. Once the drive is plugged in, gparted recognizes that there is another device there, but just keeps going on and on without ever getting anywhere.
Does this mean that you are seeing a spinning wheel.....which doesn't stop spinning...?......describe what you have done prior to seeing this, please.
 
Thank you all for all of your help so far. Much appreciated. Once plugged in, the laptop makes all of the right sounds that it should make when an external hard drive is plugged in, but the device fails to show up in "Files" or "Disks". Just to clear up what happens with Gparted, once plugged, it never gets to first base, as the bottom progress bar in Gparted moves very slowly and cannot seem to recognize the drive, and it never shows up in the top, right panel. I have run Gparted for about two hours with no success. I should repeat, the drive runs perfectly in Win 10. Plug it in and it shows up immediately, with a few photos that I have added as a test, all using Win 10.
 
Just another aside, I have formatted other external hard drives to fat32 previously, using files and all have functioned perfectly in Mint.
 
Just another aside, I have formatted other external hard drives to fat32 previously, using files and all have functioned perfectly in Mint.
Though the drive is recognized in Windows:
You might want to test that hard drive to see it's health with a program called S.M.A.R.T.


I posted a link for you in post #4 to format the drive.
There are several ways to format the drive using Mint if you'd like.
Maybe give ext 4 or NTFS a go.
 
What's on that drive?
I assume that you're referring to the non-functioning drive Alexzee? It has a few photos that I added as a test. Just another thing, it is a brand new device that I have just purchased and has never worked in Linux Mint. I have also tried it in Ubuntu - same problem.
 
We need some info:
- Plug in HDD, wait 10 secs
- Post the output of lsusb.
- Unplug HDD
- Wait 10 seconds, plug it in again.
- Post the output of: sudo dmesg | tail
- Post the HDD specs: size (2.5"/3.5"), if the case is USB-powered or externally-powered, if you're using a USB hub.

That'll help determine a lot. While you and we are waiting, try the CLI parted program and create a new partition table. Then partition how you like. Parted: https://www.gnu.org/software/parted/manual/parted.html#toc-Using-Parted-1
 
Though the drive is recognized in Windows:
You might want to test that hard drive to see it's health with a program called S.M.A.R.T.


I posted a link for you in post #4 to format the drive.
There are several ways to format the drive using Mint if you'd like.
Maybe give ext 4 or NTFS a go.
Thanks for that further advise Alexzee. I will try both of those formats and will check out S.M.A.R.T. Please remember though, I can only format in Win.
 

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