[BisManLUG] external hdd under ubuntu 10.04

[Dave McCarty]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Time for some new learnings. I received my new 320 GB usb hdd yesterday
and after a few starts and stops (and several googles) managed to mount
it, format it to ext2, and give myself permissions to read/write to it
on my netbook. I formatted it to 3 partitions one for the netbook, one
for the desktop, and one for my wife's laptop.
Installed Back in Time and figured out the settings and backed up the
netbook running Ubuntu 10.04 NBR last night. This morning I plugged it
into my Desktop and it doesn't recognize the external drive. I googled
for answers but none seem to apply. Most of the issues seem to relate to
external HD's formatted as NTSF.
Can I set up and external HD to hop from computer to computer and use
the partition reserved for that computer? It seems like something people
would want to do.

A second subject has to do with Gparted. When I format a usb thumb drive
or external drive it restricts it to root. Is there a setting I'm
missing that would assign permissions to me as user in the partitioning
program?

Dave
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJL9UXvAAoJECAOutv1Ih9Rps0IAIWAc65DT6H0+pvp6+KL0AL/
Mjkgloxa+1nDN1JAofxQ9NEo+cKHsIo72VwbSOwtQX4ah0qs7sNwqm8qr3Jn/eDV
tG2ofigwypJ6OfgtBqpvxiQVoNBbcDgDbZO0tPz5qmrAl1YetLry1abbksAjeCLM
UAPvHPTbJJVpVR7m3nW7nF77Cw3N5J2FWE1UtgqXUVVWEzlmuQavAR7CJr6AzZXj
a6MN+pRgFu/sxDpfG40alwhu3w9I53gfGnrb/BzmlLNhHZsHKSNbHbp3W53SJ0eh
BF86gwdTz4OO5xoxTMX6y3e9ePBLM9o/wEwhLcqOYK8U0quQIjy+GisVdjR3EmQ=
=lbkg
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Dan Falconer]

What OS is your desktop running?  I've mounted an ext2-formatted drive from Windows XP before without problems (after installing the proper software).

When you asked about moving the drive from system to system, you mentioned "using the partition reserved for that computer".  Are you indicating that there are multiple partitions on the drive (one specific to each computer)?  I'd need more info here before giving a good response.

--
Best Regards,


Dan Falconer
http://www.CrazedSanity.com || http://www.Buzzkill.org

[Dave McCarty]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

The desktop is running Ubuntu 10.04 AMD64. There are 3 partitions on the
HD each assigned to a computer so I can move data around and restore
data. Haven't tried my wife's laptop yet but it is runnng Ubuntu 10.04.

> --
> Best Regards,


> Dan Falconer
> http://www.CrazedSanity.com || http://www.Buzzkill.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJL9UqLAAoJECAOutv1Ih9RuSYH/R/Lu5Ij/jvbBx5vAggplG8E
S67Xs0cGybj7yqsorIj9DhlMY8WLXCDkzrhnrU85IPNOMDdXxAFD1u2zSEsEATSo
pBDdWIweD317JloH0pQxp6a+H7ypwfefAvMyePbmQhORE8dFfXzbUNWZaJrKcdaI
oYxAFFsztiYhCr7VTCDl/eTPJ60P6VEsF1HxFULKJyAbLZdvQFaUmPsLUAkh7DGN
bGrzZwf4xuBJsPgqnQXFV3mXOBAX9sY6rhbZTnxHUv0meyHO8DCQIIZVgtFkSVn5
cAKsL/XoWalH1ypxSCT0C7wsP2jFzu9mk1wndZoDw55Gi4EtQ60bA3r9RZ0JbUQ=
=CDCg
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Dan Falconer]

I haven't used 10.04, and keep in mind that I'm used to Kubuntu (KDE, not Gnome), so things might be different.  In Kubuntu, there's a "Device Notifier" that pops up an alert when my external drive is connected, showing all partitions.  With the exception of an external drive that had the sata->usb converter toasted, I haven't had any issues with connecting external drives.

On the system that fails to recognize the drive, does it recognize the device, like "/dev/sdb1"?  If there are three partitions on the external, and the system in question only has one internal drive, the system should have /dev/sdb1, /dev/sdb2, and /dev/sdb3.  Try mounting them normally, into directories in /mnt: /dev/sdb1 -> /mnt/sdb1, etc. 

If the system doesn't see the device (/dev/sdb), it may be an issue with the drive not getting enough power from the usb port: you can purchase a special USB connector that can connect to two ports on the system to draw enough power to run the drive, since generally a single USB port barely pulls enough power for a hard drive.  You might have luck searching for the drive's power requirements as opposed to standard USB output.  I have heard that some USB ports do not put out as much power as others, so you may want to try out different ports on the machine.

[David McCarty]

I discovered the issue. When I plugged the HD into my wife's laptop and turned it on it popped up right away and showed all 3 partitions and gave her as user permissions to all 3 partitions. So I went back to my desktop and decided to use the usb ports on the motherboard instead of the usb expander I have plugged into one of the ports on board to give me easier access and more usb ports. That solved the problem. Thanks for your suggestions. Now to run Back in Time, back up my home folder and do fresh install of 10.04 to see if it solves GRUB issues witout reinstalling XP.

---

From: Dan Falconer <dan.fa...@gmail.com>
To: bism...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thu, May 20, 2010 10:00:35 AM
Subject: Re: [BisManLUG] external hdd under ubuntu 10.04

[Dan Falconer]

Glad to hear it!  I would venture to guess, then, that the problem was that the port being used wasn't providing enough power.  Good to know my random searches for things that don't apply to me are doing somebody some good.  ;)