I have a hard drive in a USB enclosure that seems to be functioning properly, but when I use the 'lsblk' command, it appears as /dev/sde without any partitions listed. The drive is also visible in the GNOME disk utility, but all options are greyed out. Interestingly, it doesn't show up at all in GParted. When I attempt to use 'sudo fdisk /dev/sde', I get the error saying "cannot open /dev/sde: invalid argument." Before I start swapping out hardware to troubleshoot, are there any steps I could try to resolve this issue?
5 Answers
I have a similar issue with my SD card reader. It appears in both 'lsblk' and the GNOME disk utility even when there's no card inserted. Just to clarify, is your hard drive appearing as empty when it actually has data on it?
Just a heads up: when posting technical questions, it's always helpful to mention your Linux distribution and any relevant error messages! It can help others assist you better.
I encountered a similar situation yesterday on a Discord forum; it turned out to be a faulty SATA cable in that case. Not saying that's the problem here, but it might be worth checking your connections!
Have you tried using GParted Live? It might be able to handle this situation better than your current setup.
In this case, there’s no SATA cable since the SATA is mounted in the enclosure itself. I tried a different USB cable connected to the USB 3 port on my motherboard, but I’m still getting the same results. Both cables are brand new from different suppliers.