Q4OS Forum

Jerome

Member

Registered: 2016-02-26

Posts: 148

Failure to mount USB drive

I've just got a new computer and after installing scorpion I'm getting an error when inserting a usb drive :

Unable to mount this device.
Potential reasons include:
Improper device and/or user privilege level
Corrupt data on storage device

The weird thing is that when I try to mount it manually from the command line I get this error :

mount: can't find /dev/sdb1 in /etc/fstab

any suggestions? Thanks.

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,989

Re: Failure to mount USB drive

I've just got a new computer and after installing scorpion I'm getting an error when inserting a usb drive :

Unable to mount this device.
Potential reasons include:
Improper device and/or user privilege level
Corrupt data on storage device

Do you have another machine that you could use to check the usb stick is ok? if you do could you post the fs type of the usb stick from the other machine. (sudo fdisk -l)

The weird thing is that when I try to mount it manually from the command line I get this error :

mount: can't find /dev/sdb1 in /etc/fstab

this looks like you have not used the correct mount options, can you post the actual command you used and the full output (copy and paste from a terminal would be best).

Jerome

Member

Registered: 2016-02-26

Posts: 148

Re: Failure to mount USB drive

Hi Dai, well it seems like it's the stick which is at fault because I'm getting the same error on my netbook. Here's the output from fdisk :

Disk /dev/sdc: 14.4 GiB, 15479597056 bytes, 30233588 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x2cbb3aca

Device     Boot Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1        2048 30232575 30230528 14.4G 83 Linux

I tried to format it using gparted but I'm getting an io error. Is there anything I can do to fix it or do you think it will have to be binned?

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,989

Re: Failure to mount USB drive

I usually find when a usb drive gives issues like this it is a sign of impending failure, although I would try to get it working again but I would not trust it with anything important ever again.
Rather than type out a long post on how to attempt recovery of the device here is a link to a useful page that does pretty much what I would try.

Jerome

Member

Registered: 2016-02-26

Posts: 148

Re: Failure to mount USB drive

Great link, thanks!

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,989

Re: Failure to mount USB drive

You're welcome, let us know how you get on and if you manage to get it working ok again.

Jerome

Member

Registered: 2016-02-26

Posts: 148

Re: Failure to mount USB drive

A little progress, I zeroed the stick using "sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb/" but when tried to create a new files system with "sudo mkfs.ext4 -f /dev/sdc1" I got the error "mkfs.ext4: invalid option -- 'f'". Also when I try to create a partition table with gparted I still get the io error.

Last edited by Jerome (2018-09-24 15:01)

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,989

Re: Failure to mount USB drive

Yes I had the same thing happen when using the -f option with mkfs.ext4 .

My working procedure was:

1. sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb status=progress

2. create partition table using GParted

3. create new partition GParted

but if you are still getting errors from GParted after zeroing the drive this may not work...