USB hard drive not recognized

Question

Until recently I was using the portable USB hard drive in my win 7 laptop and ubuntu laptop. Suddenly now none of the laptops recognize it.

This is the message I get by running lsusb:

Bus 001 Device 004: ID 1058:1010 Western Digital Technologies, Inc. Elements External HDD
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 0b97:7762 O2 Micro, Inc. Oz776 SmartCard Reader
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0b97:7761 O2 Micro, Inc. Oz776 1.1 Hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 413c:a005 Dell Computer Corp. Internal 2.0 Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

fdisk doesn’t show the external hard drive

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders, total 156301488 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
Disk identifier: 0x0004a743

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048   152111103    76054528   83  Linux
/dev/sda2       152113150   156301311     2094081    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       152113152   156301311     2094080   82  Linux swap / Solaris

When I run testdisk:

TestDisk 6.14, Data Recovery Utility, July 2013
Christophe GRENIER <[email protected]>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

TestDisk is free software, and
comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.

Select a media (use Arrow keys, then press Enter):
>Disk /dev/sda - 80 GB / 74 GiB - ST980825AS
Disk /dev/sdb - 2199 GB / 2048 GiB

testdisk-> Intel->analyse I get partition error

Disk /dev/sdb - 2199 GB / 2048 GiB - CHS 2097152 64 32
Current partition structure:
Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors

Partition: Read error

Here is the output of dmesg

[11948.549171] Add. Sense: Invalid command operation code
[11948.549177] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] CDB: 
[11948.549181] Read(16): 88 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00 00
[11948.550489] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Invalid command failure
[11948.550495] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb]  
[11948.550499] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
[11948.550505] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb]  
[11948.550508] Sense Key : Illegal Request [current] 
[11948.550514] Info fld=0x0
[11948.550519] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb]  
[11948.550525] Add. Sense: Invalid command operation code
[11948.550531] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] CDB: 
[11948.550534] Read(16): 88 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00 00
[11948.551870] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Invalid command failure
[11948.551876] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb]  
[11948.551880] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
[11948.551885] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb]  
[11948.551888] Sense Key : Illegal Request [current] 
[11948.551895] Info fld=0x0
[11948.551900] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb]  
[11948.551905] Add. Sense: Invalid command operation code
[11948.551911] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] CDB: 
[11948.551914] Read(16): 88 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00 00

If possible I want to retrieve at least some data from this hard drive. If that’s not possible I would like to format it and use it.

Solution

Most likely you have a partition table that is missing or damaged. Use TestDisk tools (Open Source/Free) to see if there is an edge you can get your fingers under to rebuild your MBR or recover your partition table. TestDisk is your best friend here. If you can't get anything with the basic tools look into the companion tools called PhotoRec.

If those two can't do it....its probably a paperweight, but I would bet that once you find the right tool you can get it working again.

Don't know if you'll be able to recover any data by the time you're done but you should be able to get this one working again if nothing else.

Comments

[Lawrence]

Have you tried pulling the external hard drive out and plugging it in directly to another machine ? Those errors in the dmesg output indicates a hardware failure of some sort, so it would be best to isolate the piece of hardware that is failing.

[user318772]

I tried it but still i am getting same error ( i took the HD and put it in another HD enclousure).

[user318772]

I only have a laptop. Since it doesn't have OS on it, if i directly put the HD in laptop the system will not run right??

[Lawrence]

You could boot up with a Live USB or Live CD. It's a pretty safe bet that the drive is toast though if you've tried 2 enclosures