# external hard-disk ain't recognized



## Anonymous (Apr 25, 2010)

I just attached my external hard-disk (with usb) and can't recognize it with fdisk.
I checked dmesg:

```
root:# dmesg | tail
info: [drm] Initialized i915 1.6.0 20080730
drm0: [ITHREAD]
ugen3.2: <Sunplus Technology Inc.> at usbus3
umass0: <Bulk Only Interface> on usbus3
umass0:  SCSI over Bulk-Only; quirks = 0x4000
umass0:0:0:-1: Attached to scbus0
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): got CAM status 0x4
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): fatal error, failed to attach to device
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): lost device
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): removing device entry
```
Whats wrong?


----------



## MG (Apr 25, 2010)

Maybe your USB port has not enough power. I have an external disk with 2 connectors. On some computers I see this message when only one is plugged in.


----------



## Anonymous (Apr 25, 2010)

Aha. That might be. Its a rather old PC. 
Thanks.


----------



## fbsd1 (May 3, 2010)

check the ribbon cable nipple is correctly pluged into the HD. I got that same error when the nipple was one row of pins off.


----------



## Anonymous (May 3, 2010)

fbsd1 said:
			
		

> check the ribbon cable nipple is correctly pluged into the HD. I got that same error when the nipple was one row of pins off.


With Debian i  may mount the HD just fine (on the same PC, its dual-boot). So it is rather that i am doing it wrong the BSD-way than something hardware-related.


----------



## fronclynne (May 5, 2010)

It looks to m[e|y inexpert eye] like your USB->ATA chip doesn't play nicely with FreeBSD.  I dunno if you'll be best off with the freebsd-usb@ list, or hackers, or here, or what, though.  Sorry.


----------



## none (May 28, 2010)

I have a external usb to ide that was ok in 7.x days, and now is not. a PR is already filed for that.

none


----------



## SirDice (May 28, 2010)

Try unplugging it and plugging it back in. I had a similar issue last night with a brand new 2TB external drive. First time it just refused to recognize it. After the unplug/plug it worked.


----------



## Anonymous (Jun 2, 2010)

I read the advices here, so i tried it again (plugged and un-plugged a few times).
To make it short: i was able to mount it.

As 'fdisk' didn't show it i ran 'dmesg'. The last two lines were:

```
xptioctl: pass driver is not in the kernel
xptioctl: put "device pass" in your kernel config file
```
A search gave me this:
http://groups.google.com/group/mailing.freebsd.current/browse_thread/thread/5edc8809a498ac11
I did ran the command to be found there:

```
/etc/rc.d/devd restart
```
(which gave me errors, but /dev/da0 showed up in 'dmesg') and a final:

```
mount -t ext2fs /da0s2
```
mounted it.

I still don't understand the output of 'fdisk', but i for one can't find the device here:

```
ROOT# fdisk
******* Working on device /dev/ad0 *******
parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
cylinders=77622 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl)

Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1
parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
cylinders=77622 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl)

Media sector size is 512
Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1
Information from DOS bootblock is:
The data for partition 1 is:
sysid 165 (0xa5),(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD)
    start 63, size 57721041 (28184 Meg), flag 80 (active)
	beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1;
	end: cyl 1023/ head 15/ sector 63
The data for partition 2 is:
<UNUSED>
The data for partition 3 is:
<UNUSED>
The data for partition 4 is:
sysid 5 (0x05),(Extended DOS)
    start 57721545, size 20515005 (10017 Meg), flag 0
	beg: cyl 1023/ head 255/ sector 63;
	end: cyl 1023/ head 9/ sector 63
ROOT#
```

Thanks for the help.


----------



## Beastie (Jun 2, 2010)

Your desktop environment may be automounting it. Are you sure it's mounted? Does it show up when you execute the command `% mount`?

Besides, unless you already have an entry for *da0* in /etc/fstab, you will need to specify a mountpoint, e.g. `# mount -t ext2fs /da0s2 /mountpoint`.

And BTW, if you execute fdisk(8) without specifying a device, it will use the default one, i.e. your system disk (in this case *ad0*). Try `% fdisk da0`.


----------



## Anonymous (Jun 2, 2010)

> *Beastie: *Your desktop environment may be automounting it. Are you sure it's mounted? Does it show up when you execute the command % mount?


I am using e17. It doesn't automount per default. Might be i may set it that way, but i don't want to.



> *Beastie:* Besides, unless you already have an entry for da0 in /etc/fstab, you will need to specify a mountpoint,
> e.g. # mount -t ext2fs /da0s2 /mountpoint.


My fault, a typo. The command i used was:

```
mount -t ext2fs /dev/da0s2 /media/disk
```
So yes, it is mounted (i am listening to my music from it, so i am pretty sure).


> *Beastie:* And BTW, if you execute fdisk(8) without specifying a device, it will use the default one, i.e. your system disk (in this case ad0).
> Try % fdisk da0


Aha. Good info, now i got it.
So there ain't a similar command to the 'fdisk -l' of linux (which shows all the devices at once)?

Thank you.


----------

