ext. hard drive not in /dev

[samwedge]

Hi everyone!

I have an external USB hard drive that has recently started to fail on me and no longer mounts under fc7. It's not even listed in /dev.
I blew the dust off the old WinXP to test it there and it started up fine. Most files were accessible (some caused a crash whenever I tried to access them).

I know it's failing and have managed to get most important files off it but would like to run some linux-specific diagnostic programs on it. Is there any way to force it to be visible in /dev so I can mount it?

Looking in /var/log/messages:

Feb 23 11:22:38 localhost kernel: usb 4-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
Feb 23 11:22:38 localhost kernel: usb 4-6: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Feb 23 11:22:38 localhost kernel: Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
Feb 23 11:22:38 localhost kernel: scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Feb 23 11:22:38 localhost kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
Feb 23 11:22:38 localhost kernel: USB Mass Storage support registered.
Feb 23 11:22:43 localhost kernel: scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access FUJITSU MHT2060AH PL 0811 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
Feb 23 11:22:43 localhost kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] 117210240 512-byte hardware sectors (60012 MB)
Feb 23 11:22:43 localhost kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
Feb 23 11:22:43 localhost kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Feb 23 11:22:43 localhost kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] 117210240 512-byte hardware sectors (60012 MB)
Feb 23 11:22:43 localhost kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
Feb 23 11:22:43 localhost kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Feb 23 11:23:13 localhost kernel: sdb:<6>usb 4-6: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
Feb 23 11:23:43 localhost kernel: usb 4-6: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
Feb 23 11:24:14 localhost kernel: usb 4-6: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
Feb 23 11:25:44 localhost last message repeated 3 times
Feb 23 11:25:44 localhost kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_ABORT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK
Feb 23 11:25:44 localhost kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 0
Feb 23 11:25:44 localhost kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 0
Feb 23 11:26:14 localhost kernel: usb 4-6: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
Feb 23 11:26:45 localhost kernel: usb 4-6: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
Feb 23 11:28:15 localhost last message repeated 3 times
Feb 23 11:28:46 localhost kernel: usb 4-6: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
Feb 23 11:28:46 localhost kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_ABORT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK
Feb 23 11:28:46 localhost kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 0
Feb 23 11:28:46 localhost kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 0
Feb 23 11:29:16 localhost kernel: usb 4-6: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3


Thanks!!

[samwedge]

After around 40mins-1hr, sdb appeared in /dev. I tried mounting this. Here's what I got:

[sam@localhost dev]$ sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb /mnt/random/
Password:
Error reading bootsector: Input/output error
Failed to mount '/dev/sdb': Input/output error
NTFS is either inconsistent, or you have hardware faults, or you have 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 you have SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first you must activate
it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g.
/dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation
for the details.

Running checkdisk on windows reveals no faults!! There obviously is one though...

May just throw it out...