light slowly flashing on external hard drive

[NewToLinux]

A new WD Elements portable hard drive has been plugged into a USB 3 port on a Linux desktop.

The hard drive does not appear on an fdisk -l
listing. The small light on the drive is slowly flashing.

What is happening ? Why doesn't the drive appear in the fdisk listing ?

Is the system trying to automatically mount the hard drive ?

Is the USB port underpowered ?

I hesitate to unplug the hard drive while the light is flashing in case this corrupts the filesystem
on the hard drive.

[LE_746F6D617A7A69]

There can be many explanations, so the first thing is to check the kernel response after connecting the drive.
To see what is happening in real-time, open the terminal and type:

Code: Select all

sudo watch exec "dmesq | tail -n30"

and then, connect the usb cable.

Post the output of the dmesg here (use the tail command to limit number of lines).

[arochester]

https://community.wd.com/t/wd-elements- ... m/19311/73

How is it formatted?

[NewToLinux]

The format is NTFS, which is supported by Debian.

[arochester]

On the link I gave, which has many complaints, someone solved the problem by formatting NTFS with Ext4. ..

[NewToLinux]

Please see my thread 'problem with USB 3 port' also in the Hardware forum, which gives extended information.

[Deb-fan]

Gotta do it ...

What are you thinking Op, if you start enough threads on your problem a magic gnu/nix fairy will see one of them, wave wand and resolve everything for you? People are making suggestions, are you going to try any of that ? Asking for info/feedback from you and you're referring people to your other threads ? Sheesh at least crosslink them for the convenience of those wasting their time trying to help you, kay?

[cuckooflew]

Please see my thread 'problem with USB 3 port' also in the Hardware forum, which gives extended information.

What thread ? Why not just post the info here ?
==== This needs to stop, there are to many threads going on ,..can a Moderator sort this out please ?