Hey hey, I have just got a new Western Digital USB drive, GameDrive, an 8TB medium. I can't however format it or even create a new partition table. I am running a fairly up-to-date system: Kernel: 5.6.19-rt12-1-rt #1 SMP PREEMPT_RT
The device is recognised upon connection, also lsblk shows it.
blkid however doesn't show it. Fdisk can't open it, reporting: fdisk: cannot open /dev/sdb: Input/output error parted will start with it and show its identifier and size, but not even create a partition table, complaining about an input/output error.
Here is a snippet from dmesg: [1206985.479621] usb 1-4.1: new high-speed USB device number 95 using ehci-pci [1206985.623255] usb 1-4.1: New USB device found, idVendor=1058, idProduct=2631, bcdDevice=50.06 [1206985.623261] usb 1-4.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=1 [1206985.623264] usb 1-4.1: Product: Game Drive [1206985.623266] usb 1-4.1: Manufacturer: Western Digital [1206985.623268] usb 1-4.1: SerialNumber: 3030303030303030303030303030303030303030 [1206985.624147] usb-storage 1-4.1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected [1206985.630644] scsi host6: usb-storage 1-4.1:1.0 [1206986.679886] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access WD Game Drive 5006 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6 [1206986.680412] sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0 [1206986.684981] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Very big device. Trying to use READ CAPACITY(16). [1206986.685480] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 15628052480 512-byte logical blocks: (8.00 TB/7.28 TiB) [1206986.685484] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 4096-byte physical blocks [1206986.686601] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off [1206986.686604] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 47 00 10 08 [1206986.690364] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found [1206986.690369] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through [1206986.701963] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 device offline or changed [1206986.701969] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0 [1206986.701977] Buffer I/O error on dev sdb, logical block 0, async page read [1206986.702009] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 device offline or changed [1206986.702011] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0 [1206986.702017] Buffer I/O error on dev sdb, logical block 0, async page read [1206986.702061] ldm_validate_partition_table(): Disk read failed. [1206986.702080] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 device offline or changed [1206986.702081] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0 [1206986.702087] Buffer I/O error on dev sdb, logical block 0, async page read ... I know that the Western Digital USB drives are prone to have issues upon setup, but I'm stuck with it.
Can anyone help, suggest further action? I'd very much prefer to stay on the commandline.
TIA and best wishes,
Jeanette
Hi Jeanette,
I have just got a new Western Digital USB drive, GameDrive, an 8TB medium.
Being USB, is it connected directly to the PC or strung out on a hub? Can you try altering how it is connected? Is it definitely getting sufficient power? For example, is it on a powered hub, or does it have its own separate supply?
Oct 29 2020, Ralph Corderoy has written: ...
Being USB, is it connected directly to the PC or strung out on a hub?
I have tried both. ...
Is it definitely getting sufficient power?
It coems with its own power supply. ...
Best wishes,
Jeanette
On 10/29/20 12:49 PM, Jeanette C. via arch-general wrote:
Oct 29 2020, Ralph Corderoy has written: ...
Being USB, is it connected directly to the PC or strung out on a hub?
I have tried both. ...
Is it definitely getting sufficient power?
It coems with its own power supply. ...
Do you have access to a different system for testing? Have you tried different USB cables, maybe the one supplied by the manufacturer is faulty? I'm using lots of external USB drives with Arch Linux from multiple vendors, including Western Digital. I never had such problems on a new drive, though.
Regards, LuKaRo
Hi Jeanette,
external USB drives could be a PITA. I don't buy pre-build drives, but most enclosures I bought were a PITA, suffering from input/output errors. I had a lot of discussions with vendors and always got my money back.
As a rule of thumb, if the USB controller (again, the USB controller, not the HDD) turns off itself and or the HDD after an idle time, then input/output errors are a safe bet. In my experiences this usually happens after an idle time from around 10 minutes.
I'm using fantec DB-ALU3e enclosures. The USB controller is always on, it never turns off anything, no input/output errors, unless the HDD is broken.
Note, don't get another enclosure, such as the DB-ALU3-6G from the same vendor. They suffer from input/output errors, because the control tries to be smart.
The fantec DB-ALU3e enclosures has got USB3 and eSATA connectors, but can only be equipped with a maximal size of 4 TiB. I'm only using USB. Works on USB2 as well as USB3 ports without issues.
The first time you might not be able to blindly build in a HDD into such an enclosure, but it's that easy, that every unskilled person can help you and with some practise you likely could DIY.
https://www.reichelt.de/fantec-db-alu3e-externes-3-5-sata-hdd-gehaeuse-usb-3...
FWIW I own one old pre-build green USB WD drive. It does park the HDD's heads after an idle time, but if it gets waked up, it does not suffer from input/output errors. It's much likely the HDD that handles this and not the USB controller, however, to avoid that this drives goes to sleep and is woken up immediately, I removed software such as GVFS (dummy package), have software such as smartd not enabled, since all this software does wake up sleeping drives, right after they switched into stand by mode, which would cause my WD drive to park and release the heads every 30 minutes.
Regards, Ralf
PS: I experienced input/output errors under some special conditions, with the "good" fantec enclosures and healthy HDDs, too, e.g. when using hfs+ and not running fsck.hfsplus when connected to my Arch Linux PC, after using the hfs+ partition with iPadOS.
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