External HD lost after upgrade.

[panamahat]

After doing a general upgrade today, the system is unable to mount my external HD, a WD Elements 2.5TB. It was working perfectly before. I now get the following message when I try to access it: "An error occurred while accessing 'Elements', the system responded: org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.UnknownFailure: ntfs_attr_pread_i: ntfs_pread failed: Input/output error Failed to read NTFS $Bitmap: Input/output error NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g. /dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation for more details."  What happened, and how can I fix it?

[AS]

After doing a general upgrade today, the system is unable to mount my external HD, a WD Elements 2.5TB. It was working perfectly before. I now get the following message when I try to access it: "An error occurred while accessing 'Elements', the system responded: org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.UnknownFailure: ntfs_attr_pread_i: ntfs_pread failed: Input/output error Failed to read NTFS $Bitmap: Input/output error NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g. /dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation for more details."  What happened, and how can I fix it?

Hi panamahat,

I have the strong suspect that the "general upgrade" and the hard disk failure could be completely unrelated.
Can you try to connect the hard disk to a different computer ?
If it's USB connected (I think it is USB), open a console as administrator (root) and post the output of the command:
fdisk -l

AS

[panamahat]

Sorry, don't have another computer to connect to. The HD was fine just before the upgrade, and as soon as I rebooted after, it wouldn't mount.

[menotu]

What apps/files were actually upgraded panamahat ?

[luikki]

shut down (power off) your WD Elements 2.5TB.
reboot.

[panamahat]

Powered off the HD, rebooted the OS, repowered the HD, plugged in the HD, system sees the HD but cannot mount it. I get the same error message.

[ElCuervo]

If you haven't done it already, you may want to try opening PCC>Local disks>Manage disk partitons and see if the HD appears there and if it can be mounted from there.

[djohnston]

"An error occurred while accessing 'Elements', the system responded: org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.UnknownFailure: ntfs_attr_pread_i: ntfs_pread failed: Input/output error Failed to read NTFS $Bitmap: Input/output error NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware."

The error message indicates there's a filesystem error. Have you tried that volume with Windows? I suspect Windows would run an immediate chkdsk on that drive.

[panamahat]

Can't try it in Windows, I run Pclinuxos only. Is there an equivalent chkdsk for Linux?  Everything I try at
PCC returns the same error message, so I must agree that there is a file system screwup. Should I give up and return the HD?

[T6]

what kernel is in use?

there is tools to recover the files before anything is done

[djohnston]

Can't try it in Windows, I run Pclinuxos only. Is there an equivalent chkdsk for Linux?  Everything I try at
PCC returns the same error message, so I must agree that there is a file system screwup. Should I give up and return the HD?

With the external HD attached, open a terminal and post the results of these commands.

su -
fdisk -l
cat /etc/fstab

If you don't use Windows, why are you using NTFS?

[Old-Polack]

Can't try it in Windows, I run Pclinuxos only. Is there an equivalent chkdsk for Linux?  Everything I try at
PCC returns the same error message, so I must agree that there is a file system screwup. Should I give up and return the HD?

In Synaptic, click Search and in the box enter ntfsprogs then click the Search button. If you don't already have it installed, install it.

One of the apps it installs is;

ntfsfix: tool for fixing NTFS partitions altered by the Linux kernel NTFS
             driver.

I don't have any NTFS partitions to try this on. so don't know if it will actually fix your partition, but in the absence of a Windows installation, it can't hurt to try it.

[djohnston]

I was going to suggest a fsck, but I don't know if that will work, either.

[panamahat]

With the external HD attached, open a terminal and post the results of these commands.

su -
fdisk -l
cat /etc/fstab
[tj@localhost ~]$ su -
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l

OK, here's the result.

Disk /dev/sdb: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 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
Disk identifier: 0x801d374c

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1              63   625137344   312568641    7  HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sda: 82.3 GB, 82348277760 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 10011 cylinders, total 160836480 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
Disk identifier: 0x0006e49f

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *          63    25189919    12594928+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2        25189920   160826714    67818397+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5        25189983    33367004     4088511   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6        33367068   160826714    63729823+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 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
Disk identifier: 0x8f9c798a

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   *          63   488392064   244196001    7  HPFS/NTFS
Note: sector size is 4096 (not 512)

Disk /dev/sdh: 2500.5 GB, 2500493049856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38000 cylinders, total 610471936 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 4096 = 4096 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00047867

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdh1   *         256         254  4294967292    7  HPFS/NTFS
[root@localhost ~]# cat /etc/fstab
# Entry for /dev/sda1 :
UUID=903ea2f6-2a28-402a-8e10-e2cb66aa6919 / ext4 defaults 1 1
# Entry for /dev/sda6 :
UUID=e336f296-b7bf-459f-bf29-c125bae9a18a /home ext4 defaults 1 2
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=2f09a919-cb87-4f2f-9d52-8f2faab7fe39 swap swap defaults 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
[root@localhost ~]#

I've been on Pclinuxos since last December when I downloaded a worm that ate my Windows XP OS.
I was lucky that I had a Pclinux Live CD so that I could continue to use my computer and not lose any of my data. I've been learning Linux hands on since then. This is the first problem I've had so far. The HD in question came as NTFS so I just plugged it in and it worked fine. It was only in use for 24 hours before I did a general upgrade and the problem began. As a novice Linux user, I was unaware that there was a better (as I assume from the question why am I using NTFS if I'm only using Linux) file system for Linux. Which one should I be using, and should I get the HD working, how do I reformat the HD in the prefered system?
Thanks again Folks for giving this so much of your time.

[panamahat]

I'm not worried about data recovery on the new HD as I hadn't put much on it before it went south.