Issue mounting external (USB) NTFS drive

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sysadmin01
Posts: 15
Joined: 2011/03/29 19:38:28

Issue mounting external (USB) NTFS drive

Post by sysadmin01 » 2012/01/27 20:28:25

Hi there,

I'm having an issue mounting a 3TB NTFS partition on a Western Digital drive connected via USB. This partition mounts without issue on a Windows XP system and on a Ubuntu 10.10 system.

I'm running CentOS 5.7 kernel 2.6.18-274.17.1.el5. This is the NTFS module version:

[code]fuse-ntfs-3g.x86_64 2010.10.2-1.el5.rf installed[/code]

and the version running on the Ubuntu system:

[code]ii ntfs-3g 1:2010.8.8-0ubuntu1 read-write NTFS driver for FUSE [/code]

This is the error I get when I try to mount the partition:

[code]12:16 root@server:/mnt# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sde1 /mnt/usb_drive
Failed to read last sector (732565759): Invalid argument
HINTS: Either the volume is a RAID/LDM but it wasn't setup yet,
or it was not setup correctly (e.g. by not using mdadm --build ...),
or a wrong device is tried to be mounted,
or the partition table is corrupt (partition is smaller than NTFS),
or the NTFS boot sector is corrupt (NTFS size is not valid).
Failed to mount '/dev/sde1': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sde1' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?[/code]

The drive is using a DOS partition table. Here is fdisk output:

[code]12:47 root@srv0067l:/mnt# fdisk -lu /dev/sde
Note: sector size is 4096 (not 512)

WARNING: The size of this disk is 3.0 TB (3000590401536 bytes).
DOS partition table format can not be used on drives for volumes
larger than 2.2 TB (2199023255040 bytes). Use parted(1) and GUID
partition table format (GPT).


Disk /dev/sde: 3000.5 GB, 3000590401536 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 45600 cylinders, total 732566016 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 4096 = 4096 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sde1 256 732566015 2930263040 7 HPFS/NTFS[/code]

I don't understand the warning message as this drive works with the DOS partition table on other systems as mentioned. Also GPT won't work on windows which is what will ultimately be used to read off this drive...

Any help appreciated.

Thanks !

Nick

pschaff
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Issue mounting external (USB) NTFS drive

Post by pschaff » 2012/01/28 14:08:12

[quote]
sysadmin01 wrote:
Hi there,

I'm having an issue mounting a 3TB NTFS partition on a Western Digital drive connected via USB. This partition mounts without issue on a Windows XP system and on a Ubuntu 10.10 system.[/quote]
XP 32 or 64-bit? That matters. See Microsoft's [url=http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/guid_partition_table.mspx?mfr=true]GUID partition table[/url] page.

If using a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_Boot_Record]DOS/MBR[/url] partition table you can only access ~2TB. You must use [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table]GPT[/url] to access the full capacity. What capacity do XP and Ubuntu see?

[quote]
I'm running CentOS 5.7 kernel 2.6.18-274.17.1.el5. This is the NTFS module version:
...
I don't understand the warning message as this drive works with the DOS partition table on other systems as mentioned. Also GPT won't work on windows which is what will ultimately be used to read off this drive....[/quote]

Then you will at best be unable to use the full capacity. Just because XP and Ubuntu did not give errors does not mean everything is OK. How was the disk originally partitioned and formatted? Has it been repartitioned and reformatted on XP or Ubuntu?

sysadmin01
Posts: 15
Joined: 2011/03/29 19:38:28

Re: Issue mounting external (USB) NTFS drive

Post by sysadmin01 » 2012/01/29 00:05:43

Hey Phil thanks for your response.

Windows 32bit. I note that the MS support article you linked to says GPT won't work on USB drives:

[quote]You cannot use the GPT partitioning style on removable media, detachable disks that use universal serial bus (USB) or IEEE 1394 (also called FireWire) interfaces, or on cluster disks that are connected to shared SCSI or Fibre Channel buses used by the Cluster service. [/quote]

Both XP and Ubuntu report the full ~2.8TB.

I think the disk came pre formatted. When having issues with it I've re-partitioned and reformatted multiple times under Windows and Linux using various tools and methods.

At one point both XP, Ubuntu and CentOS were successfully mounting the drive and showing its capacity at ~800GB. Most recently I partitioned (DOS format) and formatted the drive using gparted on Ubuntu.

Ultimately I just need to put files on this drive to give to someone who'll likely prefer a windows compatible format, hence the decision to use NTFS. I'm pretty sure they'll have access to 64bit Windows Machines so GPT may be an option except that it may not work due to the drive being USB as per the MS support article.

Nick

pschaff
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Re: Issue mounting external (USB) NTFS drive

Post by pschaff » 2012/01/29 00:24:34

I'd wipe the partition table with [b]dd[/b], take the drive back to an XP system, partition and format, and then try again from CentOS. Assume the device is /dev/sde:[code]dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sde bs=512 count=64[/code]
You should be able to get ~2.19TB. Alternatively, and perhaps the preferred option, repurpose this hardware to something that [b][i]can[/i][/b] use GPT and pick up a <= 2TB drive for use with XP.

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