How to get a Seagate 2 TB USB drive automounted?

Question

I got a Seagate Backup Plus 2 TB sometime back. I tried getting it to be auto-mounted and read by Nautilus.caja or any other file-browser. The external HDD is ntfs and I have installed ntfs-3g. I have couple of Expansion USB drives and they are detected by nautilus and others quite easily. On the CLI I get the following output :-

$ lsusb
Bus 005 Device 003: ID 0bc2:ab24 Seagate RSS LLC
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 046d:c05a Logitech, Inc. M90/M100 Optical Mouse
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

As can be seen there are few USB 1.1 ports and few 2.0 ports. As can be seen Seagate attaches and declares itself at Bus 005 Device 003: ID 0bc2:ab24 .

I also checked via fdisk -l and got the following :-

$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xc5f7c5f7

Device     Boot      Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1               63  102398309  102398247  48.8G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2        102398371 1953523711 1851125341 882.7G  f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5        102398373  204796619  102398247  48.8G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda6  *     204797952  595421183  390623232 186.3G 83 Linux
/dev/sda7        595423232  790732799  195309568  93.1G 83 Linux
/dev/sda8        790734848 1943076863 1152342016 549.5G 83 Linux
/dev/sda9       1943078912 1953523711   10444800     5G 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Partition 2 does not start on physical sector boundary.

Partition 3 does not start on physical sector boundary.

Partition 6 does not start on physical sector boundary.

Disk /dev/sdb: 1.8 TiB, 2000398933504 bytes, 3907029167 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
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x1bc6b3bc

Device     Boot      Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1             2048  952322047  952320000 454.1G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2        952322048 1904642047  952320000 454.1G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3       1904642048 2856962047  952320000 454.1G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb4       2856962048 3907026943 1050064896 500.7G  f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5       2856964096 3907026943 1050062848 500.7G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Except for /dev/sdb4 which says it's W95 the rest of them seem to be ok. Then why it is that the disk does not automount ? I have ano idea also W95 stands for.

I also saw this http://changelog.complete.org/archives/9299-has-modern-linux-lost-its-way-some-thoughts-on-jessie

Could that be a related problem ?

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 22 '15 at 18:20

I had to look long and hard and finally understood what was happening. This is an old system so when no devices are there it gives :-

$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

So got to know that one of the ports is a 2.0 port. But because of the way (weird way) it is in GNU/Linux you have to physically put the HDD in the right port to get it mounted. I tried it first with using a USB 1.1 on all the ports but that one didn't give the answer.

So after couple of tries got it :-

$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 046: ID 0bc2:ab24 Seagate RSS LLC 
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 014: ID 046d:c05a Logitech, Inc. M90/M100 Optical Mouse
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

as it got automatically mounted, it seems it was a non-issue, just had to plug it in the right port (bottom right).

$ mount | grep fuse
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,relatime)
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=1000)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/shirish/Data type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other,blksize=4096,uhelper=udisks2)

I did find an interesting post during my research which I think needs sharing.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=101084&p=700965

So with that post, apparently even a 1.1 port can be made to work a USB 3.0 device.

How to get a Seagate 2 TB USB drive automounted?

1 Answers1