Cannot mount the 3,5 inch SATA HDD in my filemanager

[DavidiaN]

Hi, I'm running Linux Mint 19.1 as my main OS

I have a 3,5 inch SATA HDD (NTFS formatted) placed inside the Q10. At first it wouldn't show up in the box until I connected a USB 3 cable from the USB 3 slave port (on the left side of the box) to my PC running Linux.
I also have a USB 3 cable connected from the host usb 3 port at the back of the player to my PC. When I connect that however, the HDD disappears again inside the TVbox (under Media Center).

It does show up in my filemanager in Linux however (name/label is Xtreamer, as that was my old mediaplayer which also had a host usb 3 port and when connected to my PC, it would automatically be detected.) when I press on it under Devices in my Linux Filemanager it won't mount.

If I try it through a terminal with: sudo mount /dev/sdd1 (this is what it shows when I hover over it in the filemanager), it states it cannot find it in my fstab

Thing is, in my PC I also have a 2 TB HDD as a data backup disk. When I press that in my filemanager it just gets mounted.
If I try the same in a terminal with: sudo mount /dev/sdb1 (this is what it shows when I hover over it in the filemanager), it also states it cannot find it in my fstab. Which is correct, cuz it doesn't show in my fstab, but it does get mounted when I press on it in my Filemanger under devices.

So how come that that HDD gets mounted without an issue, but I can't seem to be able to mount the HDD disk that is directly hooked up through a USB 3 cable to the tvbox' host usb 3 port?
I have identified the UUID of the HDD inside the TVbox and I know it's device sdd1, so how come I am not able to mount it?

[stl]

You'll have to connect the box to the PC with a "printer cable" in the back of the Q10. The PC will see the internal hard drive of the Q10 as an external usb device and while is connected you won't have access to the hard drive in the Q10.

[DavidiaN]

You'll have to connect the box to the PC with a "printer cable" in the back of the Q10. The PC will see the internal hard drive of the Q10 as an external usb device and while is connected you won't have access to the hard drive in the Q10.

Oh, you think it's because of the cable I used from my old mediaplayer Xtreamer Prodigy, (see attachment) that it doesn't work?
Becuz it fits right into the Himedia back USB 3 host port and the other end fits into any USB slot on my PC. I'm just asking before I go out and buy a cable that still won't work. However, Xtreamer Prodigy referred to it as a USB Slave cable and not as a Printer cable. I didn't know there was a difference even though they can be connected the same way.

[DavidiaN]

The reason I also ask is because there seem to be different kind of printer cables.
The one I use now is a blue cable (much like the blue one shown in the attachment), but there is also a printer cable (however it is a usb 2.0 cable as opposed to the blue one shown in the attachment) as shown in my attachment that looks a bit different on one end

[maelor]

You'll have to connect the box to the PC with a "printer cable" in the back of the Q10.

Sorry to be pedantic but an external hard disk is connected to a HiMedia box using a USB (Universal Serial Bus) cable, not a "printer" cable  !

USB cables are used to connect most peripherals to the HiMedia boxes, not just disk drives, but definitely not printers!

Please use the correct terminology!

[DavidiaN]

You'll have to connect the box to the PC with a "printer cable" in the back of the Q10.

Sorry to be pedantic but an external hard disk is connected to a HiMedia box using a USB (Universal Serial Bus) cable, not a "printer" cable  !

USB cables are used to connect most peripherals to the HiMedia boxes, not just disk drives, but definitely not printers!

Please use the correct terminology!

Well, that was in direct response to the one who replied to me. But do you have any solution then? Cuz I am using a USB 3 cable that I connect from the TVbox to my PC. My PC sees the disk, it just won't mount it. While I have a 2 TB SATA HDD in my PC as well for data and backup, that is mounted as soon as I click on it in my Filemanger. So why does that work, but not the SATA HDD that I placed in the TVbox? While it was no problem with my old mediaplayer the Xtreamer Prodigy (granted it was no Android OS that was on there)

[stl]

The reason I also ask is because there seem to be different kind of printer cables.
The one I use now is a blue cable (much like the blue one shown in the attachment), but there is also a printer cable (however it is a usb 2.0 cable as opposed to the blue one shown in the attachment) as shown in my attachment that looks a bit different on one end

Any of the these two cables should work. Do you have a windows PC you could test it with?

[DavidiaN]

Any of the these two cables should work. Do you have a windows PC you could test it with?

Well, yes, and no
I don't have Windows (kinda hate it to be honest). But I do have a Windows laptop from work. It doesn't have a USB 3 port, but it does have a few USB 2.0 ports.

I'll try that then. Thnx for your continuing assistance. At least you try to provide some help instead of bashing other people ;-)

I just tried it with my Windows laptop and it mounted the HDD without any problem. I can see all directories on the HDD. So, it's definately not the cable. It's extremely weird that it won't do that on my Linux PC.

[stl]

Any of the these two cables should work. Do you have a windows PC you could test it with?

Well, yes, and no
I don't have Windows (kinda hate it to be honest). But I do have a Windows laptop from work. It doesn't have a USB 3 port, but it does have a few USB 2.0 ports.

I'll try that then. Thnx for your continuing assistance. At least you try to provide some help instead of bashing other people ;-)

I just tried it with my Windows laptop and it mounted the HDD without any problem. I can see all directories on the HDD. So, it's definately not the cable. It's extremely weird that it won't do that on my Linux PC.

When you connect the Q10 Pro to the PC that way it's basically like connecting an external USB hard drive. Maybe the problem has something to do with how the partitions were created. If you have the free space you could copy the disk contents to the PC, erase all partitions, convert to GPT instead of MBR (if it isn't already) and create a new partition.

[DavidiaN]

When you connect the Q10 Pro to the PC that way it's basically like connecting an external USB hard drive. Maybe the problem has something to do with how the partitions were created. If you have the free space you could copy the disk contents to the PC, erase all partitions, convert to GPT instead of MBR (if it isn't already) and create a new partition.

Well, it seems you have a point there, cuz I used Gparted to see the partitions, but it gave me the following error:

The device '/dev/sdd1' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?

mount -v -t 'ntfs' '/dev/sdd1' '/mnt/01CD14C24A426A90'
Failed to read last sector (3907029103): Ivalid Argument
HINTS: Either the volume is a RAID/LDM but it wasn't setup yet,
   or it was not setup correctly (e.g. by not using mdadm --build ...),
   or a wrong device is tried to be mounted,
   or the partition table is corrupt (partition is smaller than NTFS),
   or the NTFS boot sector is corrupt (NTFS size is not valid).
Failed to mount '/dev/sdd1': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sdd1' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?

The thing is, it'll mean I have to copy about 1.6 TB worth of data to my PC. That in itself is not a problem because I somewhat still have that space on my computer. But I guess it means I'd have to go out and buy a SATA bay for copying it over as I don't have that at the moment.
Cuz I did try on my PC under Disks to give pretty much all the same parameters as my internal HDD has (which mounts perfectly )
The only thing that is different from the HDD in my PC is that where it states: Partioning, it says: GUID-Partition table
And the HDD in my TVbox states there: Master Boot Record.
I don't know if that got anything to do with it.

What I'm also worried about is, I could get a SATA docking station or SATA to USB 3 adapter and connect that to my PC. But won't that probably result in the same error? Since my OS cannot read the last sector (3907029103): Ivalid Argument ??

[stl]

Having the Q10 hard drive with MBR should be the cause of the problem.

Since windows can see the partition you could boot with a Windows 10 flash drive and copy the files before deleting, converting to GUID Partition table (GPT) and creating a new partition.
https://www.geckoandfly.com/32030/bootable-windows-pe-recovery-repair/

Or, you can try to convert to GPT:
https://www.google.com/search?q=convert+mbr+to+gpt+without+data+loss+Linux&oq=convert+mbr+to+gpt+without+data+loss+Linux+&ie=UTF-8

I wouldn't try to convert it without making a backup though.

[DavidiaN]

Yeah ok, it'll mean I need a flash drive capable of holding 1.6 TB of data though. 
Maybe I'll just go out and buy a new external HDD and do what you suggest. I guess it's the only way. Thank you so much for all your assistance in this stl. It's much appreciated.  I'm already more in love with the Q10 so far (only have it for 5 days now) than I ever was with my previous one the Zappiti Pro 4K. That one was not only far more expensive, but utter garbage!

[stl]

Yeah ok, it'll mean I need a flash drive capable of holding 1.6 TB of data though. 

Not what I meant
Boot with a Windows PE usb flash drive in your PC and copy the files to one of your hard drives.
It's like booting from a Linux distribution without installing it.

You can also install the hard drive inside you PC and see if Linux can mount the partition that way.

[DavidiaN]

Yeah ok, it'll mean I need a flash drive capable of holding 1.6 TB of data though. 

Not what I meant
Boot with a Windows PE usb flash drive in your PC and copy the files to one of your hard drives.
It's like booting from a Linux distribution without installing it.

You can also install the hard drive inside you PC and see if Linux can mount the partition that way.

Ah yes, well that's too much trouble and I don't even think I can do that. Cuz I need a Windows OS according to this article here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/download-winpe--windows-pe, and I only have a laptop from work, which is extremely limited in it's usage cuz I am not the administrator for that laptop.

What I'm sure of what I can't do, is place the HDD into my PC. My left arm is paralyzed so I can only use one hand. I guess you'll understand that that really is no option for me. I might try to just convert the partition from MBR to GPT cuz that might actually be a viable solution