Two identical external hard drives one not accessible

Support and Help
1

Ubuntu Version:
Ubuntu 24.04

Problem Description
I have two external hard drives of exactly the same models, let’s call them A and B.

I use B for data storage, it is formatted to ntfs.

For drive A, I formatted it to ext 4 and installed Ubuntu 24.04 for testing.

I bought a new laptop. Before I wiped Windows and installed Ubuntu I wanted to test it on a real install (instead of live usb) without voiding the warrantee.

So I booted the new laptop off a 24.04 live usb and then fully installed 24.04 into drive A.

After that, I booted the new laptop from drive A and tested this installation for a few months. Everything worked so I finally wiped Windows and installed Ubuntu on the new laptop.

After installing Ubuntu in the new laptop, if I plug in drive A (where another copy of Ubuntu is installed, formatted to ext4) it mounts with no issue. But if I plug in drive B (the one formatted to ntfs for storage) I get an error

Error mounting /dev/sda2 at /media/monkeybrain/ADATA HD650:wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda2, missing codepage or helper program, or other error

However, this drive is perfectly fine. I plug it in another laptop with Ubuntu 22.04 installed and it mounts fine and I could access all the files.
Running blkid on the other laptop:

/dev/sda2: UUID=“8BF8-00C8” BLOCK_SIZE=“512” TYPE=“vfat” PARTUUID=“5b43bc97-2201-4a4e-97b7-abb3d0150995”
/dev/sda1: UUID=“335d7bd3-e4e8-4753-9f90-52e229090e3a” BLOCK_SIZE=“4096” TYPE=“ext4” PARTUUID=“7112c69f-bd2d-446c-a7ff-a55641817cea”

for drive A, the one that mounts on the new laptop with no problem, blkid gives

/dev/sda2: UUID=“8BF8-00C8” BLOCK_SIZE=“512” TYPE=“vfat” PARTUUID=“5b43bc97-2201-4a4e-97b7-abb3d0150995”
/dev/sda1: UUID=“335d7bd3-e4e8-4753-9f90-52e229090e3a” BLOCK_SIZE=“4096” TYPE=“ext4” PARTUUID=“7112c69f-bd2d-446c-a7ff-a55641817cea”

I think it maybe because my new laptop is confused because it was booting from an identical drive before even now I don’t boot from it anymore.

Thanks in advance for the help.

2

Maybe your ntfs filesystem is marked as ‘dirty’. This may be caused by unplugging the drive but not properly unmounting it first.

Ubuntu 24.04 uses the ntfs3 kernel driver by default. This driver is more secure but doesn’t mount ‘dirty’ filesystems.
Ubuntu 22.04 defaults to userspace driver ntfs-3g which is somewhat slower in accessing the filesystem but on the other hand doesn’t complain about ‘dirty’ filesystems.

There are already some threads here with similar issues. Take a look:

1 Like
3

Your post shows the output of the blkid command for a drive with a standard Linux EFI install, one vfat partition and one ext4. Post the output of the problem drive.

4

Hi, I have posted the blkid outputs of both the problem drive and the good one. The first entry (drive B) is the problematic one, the second entry (drive A) is the good one.

5

@g-schick

Hi, blacklisting ntfs-3 as per your link works

echo ‘blacklist ntfs3’ | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/disable-ntfs3.conf

Thanks for the help!

1 Like
6

If you erased Windows, best not to use NTFS.
NTFS will require chkdsk or defrag periodically and that can only be done from Windows.

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7

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