NTFS filesystem on external drive isn't recognised: "mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb1"

hard-drive external-hdd

30,558

First determine what is the filesystem of your external hard disk. You need these packages for the following Windows filesystems:

exFAT: exfat-fuse
NTFS: ntfs-3g
FAT32: already built in the kernel

Install the corresponding packages by running sudo apt install <package>. If the disk is not automatically mounted when plugging in the disk, mount it at the terminal with:

exFAT: sudo mount -t exfat <device> <mount_point>
NTFS: sudo mount -t ntfs-3g <device> <mount_point>

30,558

Rohan

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Rohan over 1 year

I have a 1TB WD HDD which works fine on any Windows computer. My laptop only runs Ubuntu Linux and for some reason the hard disk is not being recognized.

Running fdisk -l gives me this output :

Disk /dev/ram0: 64 MiB, 67108864 bytes, 131072 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


Disk /dev/ram1: 64 MiB, 67108864 bytes, 131072 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


Disk /dev/ram2: 64 MiB, 67108864 bytes, 131072 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


Disk /dev/ram3: 64 MiB, 67108864 bytes, 131072 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


Disk /dev/ram4: 64 MiB, 67108864 bytes, 131072 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


Disk /dev/ram5: 64 MiB, 67108864 bytes, 131072 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


Disk /dev/ram6: 64 MiB, 67108864 bytes, 131072 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


Disk /dev/ram7: 64 MiB, 67108864 bytes, 131072 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


Disk /dev/ram8: 64 MiB, 67108864 bytes, 131072 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


Disk /dev/ram9: 64 MiB, 67108864 bytes, 131072 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


Disk /dev/ram10: 64 MiB, 67108864 bytes, 131072 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


Disk /dev/ram11: 64 MiB, 67108864 bytes, 131072 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


Disk /dev/ram12: 64 MiB, 67108864 bytes, 131072 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


Disk /dev/ram13: 64 MiB, 67108864 bytes, 131072 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


Disk /dev/ram14: 64 MiB, 67108864 bytes, 131072 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


Disk /dev/ram15: 64 MiB, 67108864 bytes, 131072 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


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: 0xca450371

Device     Boot   Start        End    Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *       2048     999423     997376  487M 83 Linux
/dev/sda2       1001470 1953523711 1952522242  931G  5 Extended
/dev/sda5       1001472 1953523711 1952522240  931G 8e Linux LVM

Partition 2 does not start on physical sector boundary.




Disk /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root: 915.1 GiB, 982612180992 bytes, 1919164416 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


Disk /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-swap_1: 15.9 GiB, 17075011584 bytes, 33349632 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


Disk /dev/sdb: 931.5 GiB, 1000170586112 bytes, 1953458176 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: 0x0003f448

Device     Boot Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1        2048 1953458175 1953456128 931.5G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

And then I tried this:

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt -t auto

And this is what I got:

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb1,
   missing codepage or helper program, or other error

   In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
   dmesg | tail or so.

I am new to Linux. I did search for the question and I found most of them to have a problem where the hard disk is not recognized while installing. But, I have Ubuntu installed already!

Anthony Wong almost 8 years

Do you know what is the filesystem used on the external harddisk? Is it exFAT, NTFS or FAT32? To support exFAT, you have to install exfat-fuse by apt install exfat-fuse. After that, try mounting your hard disk again.
Rohan almost 8 years

The external hard disk has a filesystem of NTFS.
Anthony Wong almost 8 years

Do you have the ntfs-3g package installed?
Rohan almost 8 years

Yes, I got it from here packages.ubuntu.com/precise/ntfs-3g. But what do I do with it? I have the box checked which gives the write access to external devices
Anthony Wong almost 8 years

First of all, you should not use the package from the link you posted above, that is for the 12.04 release, which is old. Type sudo apt install ntfs-3g to get the latest. Then run sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /mnt to mount the drive, or just plug your external drive and see if it will be auto-mounted.
foxite almost 8 years

You may answer your own question with the solution you got from @AnthonyWong. It will help others :)
Anthony Wong almost 8 years

I have transformed my comment into an answer.

Anachronist almost 6 years

Hmm. After I installed exfat-fuse, the commad 'mount -t exfat /dev/sda /mnt' returned "unknown filesystem exfat".
Anthony Wong almost 6 years

@Anachronist can you check with dpkg -l exfat-fuse if exfat-fuse has really been properly installed? Which Ubuntu release are you using?
Anachronist almost 6 years

Huh. You're right, it didn't get installed properly even though I don't recall seeing any errors during installation. I tried installing again, and this time dkpg showed it present and the mount command worked.