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I have an external hard drive I use to store my work. I have been using it with Windows with no problems, but since I've used it with Ubuntu, I've had corrupted files and just recently, the whole hard drive needed scanning and repairing.

The issue seems to happen when I shutdown my computer (with Ubuntu running). Not sure if this is relevant, but the hard-drive emits a high-pitched beep when I do this, which doesn't happen with Windows, and this is apparently due to the hard-drive not getting enough power.

I have tried closing all programs and dismounting the hard drive before shutting down, but the hard drive still appears to be in use after dismounting, as shown by the light on it.

This issue is quite disruptive to my work, so any help to resolve it would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance

user2428777
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    Think the light just means it is connected to power, it will stay on as long as the cable is connected and the computer is on. This is just a hard drive for data, no OS is on it? Main cause would hard drive failing, another cause could be Windows did not use regular partition for it. Don't know enough, but notice some questions about different types of partitions windows uses. – crip659 Dec 30 '19 at 13:48
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    "I have been using it with Windows with no problems" That is a fallacy: it does not mean there are no problems. I would first assume windows is not informing you of issues related to that hardware. Microsoft has a habit of discarding alerts like that and only show them when it is near the point of actually breaking. Your hardware is probably broken. Linux will always issue a warning of some sort. – Rinzwind Dec 30 '19 at 13:54

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If the problem with HDD power, try to use another cable, or another USB port. If you'll get it work, look at disk's SMART data (using Disks application). There is an information of disk health. Maybe your disk is corrupted physically, but not just broken data. If it's not there, try

sudo fdisk -l

But your disk is not listed there, it seems it's dead.

Taras Khalymon
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Some USB drives just don't want to power off properly in Ubuntu - meaning that when clicking "eject" in the file manager, choosing "power off" in the Disks app, or unmounting them, they don't actually power off (the drive keeps spinning), and, when pulling the power (i.e. disconnecting the USB or turning off the PC), the drive will do an "emergency head parking" - which isn't good for drive longevity.

(However, most drives do power down correctly with Window's "safely remove hardware". I'm guessing that it's mostly just buggy firmware, and manufacturers don't bother testing on Linux.)

I've found the most reliable way to get my USB drives to fully power off (which still doesn't work for all drives), is to choose the "Power off" option in the Disks app - as shown in the screenshot in this answer.

The other problem that's commonly encountered is that Windows will ask to "Scan and fix" when using a USB drive that was previously used in Ubuntu. It looks like this:

enter image description here

There's actually nothing wrong with the files or the drive - it happens because Windows isn't aware of the existence of other operating systems, so it assumes that any file changes changes must be some random corruption or similar (Windows does this by setting an "everything is OK" flag when unmounting the drive - Ubuntu doesn't set this flag, so Windows then assumes that something is wrong when the flag is missing.)

In short: you can click "continue without scanning", if you correctly unmounted / ejected it in Ubuntu.

Jonas Czech
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  • Thank you very much for the detailed response! This explains my disappearing files and I am able to disconnect the drive properly now before shutting down – user2428777 Dec 31 '19 at 11:34