ASUS EEE PC 701 external hard drive write failure issue. (solved)

[deathromantik]

It looks like I missed a command, I was on my way to bed. Lol

[frankenbeats@localhost ~]$ dmesg | tail
sd 4:0:0:0:  [sdc] 625142448 512-byte logical blocks: (320 GB/298 GiB)
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense 23 00 00
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write though
 sdc:
usb-storage: device scan complete
 sdc1
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write though
sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk

[deathromantik]

*bump*
Has anyone got any other ideas on how to fix this?

[muungwana]

have you tried to access it from another computer? i can not see why it doesnt work, the problem could be hardware related

[deathromantik]

I've tried to do it on some vista machines, I got messages saying installing drivers..... Intall failed or some thing like that. Otherwise it just does not show up.
And it is in FAT.

I don't have an other computer of my own.
It worked fine on my machine up until about a month and a half ago.

[muungwana]

2009,2010 and vista cant not fully access your external device. It looks to me that it is a hardware problem. Try to run a disk repair utility on it and see if it will report anything bad. I would back up all important data on that drive if i was you.

[deathromantik]

danm western digital and their crummy harddrives and worse usb cables.
I am trying to back up but my machine only has an 8gb SSD and I wanted to back up 40GB of my music. Files would not copy over compleatly due to some permitions or something. When I tried to deleate them to clear up space I could not due it. Once again due to permitions

I thought that maybe I could just resize make a linux native partition and then reformat after I copied all the files.
But trying to resize gave me this error : Bad FAT: unterminated chain for /MUSIC ... propagated.

[deathromantik]

well all my music is copied over. Now I have this hard disk that I can't write to or format. What are these disk repair tools? Are they standard with the os, from the manufacturer or in the repo?
Is there a way to compleatly wipe it clean and format to a linux native FS?

[scoundrel]

go to your blue icon with the tools on it and go to local discs--manage disc partitions ....make sure you know which disc it is before you delete and then repartition --format it

[deathromantik]

I have tried that, it just hangs or fails.
I have no write access at all to that drive even as root.
Is there some tool that gets past this and whipes everything clean? I'd like to format to either ext3 or ext4.
A delete partition or re format using the manage partions button in configure your computer has no effect.

[scoundrel]

go back and delete said partition then click done..  then go back and partition and format.. see if that does the job

edit: you are doing this from a livecd or a liveusb right ??

[deathromantik]

From liveCD: no.
I had tried all combinations but that.
Will give it a shot in the morning.

[deathromantik]

Yep that worked. Funny I did not think of that. Now I know what to do to fix this problem.
By the way what are some harddisk repair tools that I should get?

I guess this problem is solved, thankyou guys.

[scoundrel]

Yep that worked. Funny I did not think of that. Now I know what to do to fix this problem.
By the way what are some harddisk repair tools that I should get?

I guess this problem is solved, thankyou guys.

glad you got it sorted ...

in what sense do you mean HD repair tool ..are you having problems with HD's ??

[deathromantik]

I don't know what it is but my WesternDigital 320GB external hdd's have buggered up every now and then, I've lost write access, partitions have dissapeerd not to mention the lousy cables they came with. Just to use them I have to unplug my LG Dvd drive and use it's usb cable to use my hard disks.
A reformat fixes the strange permissions problems but it is a pain to copy from one drive to the next in four gig batches at a time from one drive to the next every six months.
I realy only use them for music and pictures, but there should be a better way to deal with this.

[scoundrel]

I don't know what it is but my WesternDigital 320GB external hdd's have buggered up every now and then, I've lost write access, partitions have dissapeerd not to mention the lousy cables they came with. Just to use them I have to unplug my LG Dvd drive and use it's usb cable to use my hard disks.
A reformat fixes the strange permissions problems but it is a pain to copy from one drive to the next in four gig batches at a time from one drive to the next every six months.
I realy only use them for music and pictures, but there should be a better way to deal with this.

could buy yourself a usb hub..they don't cost very much