Mounting NTFS external HDD

[TheBod]

Hi

I am now the proud owner of a Pi to replace an old Windows based media centre connected to my lounge PC. I have successfully installed Kodi and wish to add all the movies I have on a Seagate 1TB USB HDD. In Windows I have determined that this has the NTFS file structure.

I have looked at the many tutorials online regarding mounting the drive, which is all new to me. I have run the following as advised;
sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g

When I run 'blkid' the drive is not listed under /dev/sda1 as all the tutorials suggest. It is nowhere to be seen and therefore when i do...
'sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /media/usb'

...the process eventually finishes but I do not think anything has happened. If I can get it to mount, and be seen, I assume that i need to add the following line into nano/etc/fstab?

/dev/sda1 /media/usb ntfs defaults,umask=000


Any help for a complete novice would be appreciated. Thanks

[DirkS]

First of all: if you intend to use the HD with the Pi (or other Linux system) and the drive is currently empty I would convert it to ext4.
It makes life easier *and* performance is significantly better.

Does the drive show up with the command 'lsusb'?
Is the drive connected to a powered USB hub or directly to the Pi?
What model Pi do you have?
If connected to the Pi and you have a model B+ or Pi2B then add

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max_usb_current=1

to /boot/config.txt, reboot and check again.

[TheBod]

Thanks for reply

The HDD used to be connected to the Windows pc so has my entire movie, music and photo collection on and therefore needs to remain as NTFS.

I have just tried 'lsusb' and the following line is listed;

Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0bc2:3312 Seagate RSS LLC

Therefore I assume that this is the Seagate HD?

[TheBod]

Forgot to mention...
The HD is connected directly to the Pi
The Pi is a Pi2 Model B 1GB

thanks

[DirkS]

yes, it looks as if your HD is connected and recognised.
Can you post the output of

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sudo fdisk -l

It should list the partitions on all drives.

[TheBod]

When i do 'sudo fdisk -l' the following is shown on the bottom line

/dev/sda1 2048 3907029163 1953513558 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

[TheBod]

Also, how do I add the 'max_usb_current=1' to the '/boot.config.txt' as recommended? What does this do?

[fruitoftheloom]

Also, how do I add the 'max_usb_current=1' to the '/boot.config.txt' as recommended? What does this do?

https://projects.drogon.net/testing-set ... berry-pi-b

[TheBod]

Thanks, but how do I mount the HD? I am a complete novice so nice easy steps would be appreciated

[DirkS]

When i do 'sudo fdisk -l' the following is shown on the bottom line

/dev/sda1 2048 3907029163 1953513558 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

That looks good.
IIRC the line in /etc/fstab should look like this

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/dev/sda1    /media/usb   ntfs-3g   rw,default   0   0

You'll have to create /media/usb first and I would change ownership to user pi:

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sudo chown pi:pi /media/usb

[TheBod]

OK, that is completed and I have rebooted.

When I type 'lsusb' the HD is still showing.

When i run 'sudo fdisk -l' the /dev/sda1 line is still present.

Do I assume that the HD is mounting automatically upon startup?

[DirkS]

Do I assume that the HD is mounting automatically upon startup?

You can check it with a simple

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mount

which shows info about all the mounted volumes.
And

ls -a /media/usb

should of course show the root of your HD
If it doesn't you'll have to check the logs.

[TheBod]

Great, when typing 'mount' I get a list of different items but none of them are /dev/sda1 or any mention of Seagate?

Also, when I do 'ls -a /media/usb' I get '. ..' Is this correct?

[TheBod]

and finally, how will I be able to find the content of the HD when in Kodi? I assume that it will not be easy like E:\ when in Windows

Many thanks

[DirkS]

Great, when typing 'mount' I get a list of different items but none of them are /dev/sda1 or any mention of Seagate?

Also, when I do 'ls -a /media/usb' I get '. ..' Is this correct?

It's not mounted then. Check the logs, e.g. with

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dmesg | less

and check for relevant lines and any related errors.

You could also try to mount it manually with

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sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /meda/usb 

BTW: did you actually install the package 'ntfs-3g'?

[TheBod]

Hi, yes i did install the ntfs package but somehow when running 'sudo mount ......' it said 'mount: unknown filesystem tyoe ntfs-3g'

I have now reloaded the ntfs package and repeated 'sudo mount.......'

Taking a long time for the pi@raspberrypi to show

[TheBod]

Getting there. When 'mount' the last line is

/dev/sda1 on /media/usb type fuseblk ...etc etc

Does this sound correct?


Update, when 'ls -a /media/usb' all the folders with movies etc are now showing in green. Success?

[TheBod]

Looks like it is now mounted ok (thank you). Any idea on the required file location that Kodi XBMC would find the HD at?

[DirkS]

Getting there. When 'mount' the last line is

/dev/sda1 on /media/usb type fuseblk ...etc etc

Does this sound correct?


Update, when 'ls -a /media/usb' all the folders with movies etc are now showing in green. Success?

That looks ok to me.
But if this happens with the manual mount then there must be something wrong with the auto mount at boot.
I would check with dmesg at which point
IIRC there could be timing problems on the Pi2B, meaning that fstab is processed before the drive is available for mounting.

[DirkS]

Looks like it is now mounted ok (thank you). Any idea on the required file location that Kodi XBMC would find the HD at?

When adding a media source you can add '/media/usb' manually or use 'browse', then select 'home folder' and navigate from there to /media/usb

[DirkS]

Getting there. When 'mount' the last line is

/dev/sda1 on /media/usb type fuseblk ...etc etc

Does this sound correct?


Update, when 'ls -a /media/usb' all the folders with movies etc are now showing in green. Success?

That looks ok to me.
But if this happens with the manual mount then there must be something wrong with the auto mount at boot.
I would check with dmesg at which point
IIRC there could be timing problems on the Pi2B, meaning that fstab is processed before the drive is available for mounting.

If you have a Pi2B then try making this change in /boot/cmdline.txt

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sudo nano /boot/cmdline.txt

Add this at the end of the first line (it should be the online in the file)

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rootdelay=5

Save and close the file. Then reboot and check if the drive mounts automatically.

[TheBod]

Made the change to the cmdline and rebooted. Now getting an error

'udevd[214]: timeout: killing '/sbin/blkid -o udev -p /dev/sda1 [643]'

which keeps cycling through and not finishing.

any ideas?

[DirkS]

Made the change to the cmdline and rebooted. Now getting an error

'udevd[214]: timeout: killing '/sbin/blkid -o udev -p /dev/sda1 [643]'

any ideas?

Not really, apart from undoing the modification.

[TheBod]

Unfortunately I cannot get the to pi@raspberrypi command prompt, just keeps cycling through the time out issue. When rebooted it starts this process again following

'Waiting for /dev to be fully populated….. [45.409005] usb `-`.5; reset high-speed usb number to 6'


Update, eventually stopped the cycle so removed the last code and rebooted, all back to normal

'sudo fdisk -l' still shows the 'Disk /dev/sda'
'lsusb' still shows the Seagate RSS LLc

[TheBod]

Ok, update on the situation.

When I reboot and type 'ls -a /media/usb' the result is ' . .. ' so i am assuming that the HD is not mounted.

If I do 'sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /media/usb' and then repeat 'ls -a /media/usb' it show displays ' . .. '

I then do 'sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g' and then repeat 'ls -a /media/usb' and the folders within the HD are now shown, highlighted green.

If I then do 'mount' it does show /dev/sda1 as the last item so I therefore assume that the HD is mounted correctly.

Within 'sudo nano /etc/fstab' I have the following line;

/dev/sda1 /media/usb ntfs-3g rw,default 0 0


After a reboot back into Raspian, when I type 'ls -a /media/usb' it displays ' . .. '

I then have to repeat the entire process again, even 'sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g'

This does not seem correct? Help please