Auto mount 4TB USB drive with NTFS/GPT on start with FSTAB

[1byte]

I am trying to get my external 4TB drive I purchased in BestBuy to auto mount when booting up on my headless Stretch 64bit machine.


Searching net, I have found this, that sort of works:
#UUID=0XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX /media/external ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
"man fstab" has nice explanation what all the fields mean, which works, but on next restart the system would hang at boot ...but it all looks to be good,
when I remove the drive from fstab, the pc would not hang on reboot ...

.

$ uname -a
Linux OptiPlex3020M-PentiumG3240T 4.9.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.51-1 (2017-09-28) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Here is dmesg when I insert the drive with fstab line disabled ..


[144073.974450] usb 2-2: new SuperSpeed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd
[144073.995394] usb 2-2: New USB device found, idVendor=1058, idProduct=25fa
[144073.995398] usb 2-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=1
[144073.995400] usb 2-2: Product: easystore 25FA
[144073.995403] usb 2-2: Manufacturer: Western Digital
[144073.995405] usb 2-2: SerialNumber: 57XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
[144074.070309] usb-storage 2-2:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[144074.070995] scsi host4: usb-storage 2-2:1.0
[144074.071157] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[144074.085435] usbcore: registered new interface driver uas
[144075.102979] scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access WD easystore 25FA 1013 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[144075.103359] scsi 4:0:0:1: Enclosure WD SES Device 1013 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[144075.135348] sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
[144075.135560] scsi 4:0:0:1: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 13
[144075.137072] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Spinning up disk...
[144075.164119] ses 4:0:0:1: Attached Enclosure device
[144076.158309] .
[144077.182281] .
[144078.206229] .
[144079.230182] .
[144080.254137] .
[144081.278094] .
[144082.302049] .
[144082.302236] ready
[144082.302441] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Very big device. Trying to use READ CAPACITY(16).
[144082.302637] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 7813969920 512-byte logical blocks: (4.00 TB/3.64 TiB)
[144082.302640] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 4096-byte physical blocks
[144082.302859] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[144082.302863] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 47 00 10 08
[144082.303078] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
[144082.303140] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[144082.304145] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Very big device. Trying to use READ CAPACITY(16).
[144082.500129] sdb: sdb1
[144082.500702] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Very big device. Trying to use READ CAPACITY(16).
[144082.501234] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk

[debiman]

does it have to be ntfs?
does it have to be one gigantic partition?
does it work normally (no delay etc.) when manually plugging it in, and using it?
where does the boot hang? at which point? mounting the drive? have you tried to wait it out?
would it work to mount any ntfs partition on bootup?

[Soapm]

My server couldn’t see a full 4tb drive via usb. I had to hook them directly to the Sata ports to see the full drives.

[debiman]

^ this to answer my questions?
so it is [SOLVED] now?
please mark it so.

[p.H]

Soapm is not the OP.

Edit : From the kernel logs, the USB disk seems to take a very long time to spin up.

[debiman]

Soapm is not the OP.

oops!

[1byte]

does it have to be ntfs?
does it have to be one gigantic partition?
does it work normally (no delay etc.) when manually plugging it in, and using it?
where does the boot hang? at which point? mounting the drive? have you tried to wait it out?
would it work to mount any ntfs partition on bootup?

YES to NTFS, as I need to be able to plug the HDD to Window$ machine

It does not have to be one gigantic partition, but I will be attaching another 3 more 4TB HDD to this PC,
so would making smaller partitions make difference?

Have not tried manually "manually plugging it in", will try later ..

Have not tried without the drive, will try later ..

"Loading into the ramdisk ..." it hangs on ..