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My freshly bought external hard drive is not recognized by my Ubuntu 18.04.5 laptop by any USB port. The ports work fine, however (they accept external mouse and keyboard).

I am no Linux wizard, so any help would be appreciated!

edit:

With respect to USB ports: Output of lsusb enter image description here

Not sure why it shows 3 USB ports, the laptop only has 2...

External drive does not have its own power, but it is powered on when I connect it (i.e. light is glowing).

edit2: Output of Disks app, the external drive is shown there. enter image description here

edit3: after installing exFAT via "sudo apt-get install exfat-fuse exfat-utils" (note that people had difficulties installing it at the link given in the comments, so I can't be sure whether it worked properly), rebooting, and re-connecting the drive, nothing has changed in the Disks window. When clicking on the wheels, I can choose between "Format Partition", "Edit Partition", "Resize", "Create Partition Image", "Restore Partition Image", "Benchmark Partition"

This is the drive: Amazon.co.uk It does not say anything of the necessity to have certain types of USB ports, so I would be surprised if power was an issue.

reloh100
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    Your issue maybe hardware related; ie. USB keyboards & mouse are low-powered devices; USB external hard drives are not & may require more power than your USB port is capable of providing; esp. if it's a recent drive. If your hardware is old (USB 2.0 or older) it may not provide sufficient power to power a USB device if it requires USB 3.0 - which is not a OS issue; but hardware limitation. Your details have not ruled out these issues; and 18.04.5 (ignoring your typo) is outdated so upgrade asap - https://fridge.ubuntu.com/2021/09/17/ubuntu-18-04-6-lts-released/ – guiverc Mar 01 '22 at 01:38
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    If your external drive is USB3.0 and has it's own power source (ie. isn't relying on the PC for power) a modern USB 3.0 drive should work on an older PC with USB 2.0; it'll just work at a slower speed. – guiverc Mar 01 '22 at 01:40
  • I do seem to have USB3 ports (edited question). – reloh100 Mar 01 '22 at 10:35
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    Open the app called "Disks" and see if the external hard drive is visible there. If it is visible on the left panel of Disks, then select it on the left panel and take a screenshot and update your question with the screenshot of the app. – user68186 Mar 01 '22 at 11:03
  • updated. it is shown in the app, but not on the left-hand side bar of the files manager. no idea how I can open the drive and transfer files. – reloh100 Mar 01 '22 at 13:08
  • The drive came formatted exFAT. Support for exFAT may not be installed by default. Search this site for installing exFAT support and install the necessary program. – user68186 Mar 01 '22 at 13:12
  • Does this answer your question? Ubuntu 18.04 does not mount 2TB exFat drive even after installing exfat-fuse exfat-utils – user68186 Mar 01 '22 at 13:15
  • No, didn't work. I installed via "sudo apt-get install exfat-fuse exfat-utils" but nothing has changed. – reloh100 Mar 01 '22 at 13:42
  • You may have to reboot and remove and reinsert the drive. Open "Disks" again and see if there are any changes on the right (main) panel when you select the external disk. What do you see if you click on the "Gear" icon below the big red bar in Disks? – user68186 Mar 01 '22 at 13:56
  • The 2.1TB disk should be formatted in GPT, not MBR, and it should use an external AC power supply, or it'll probably need a POWERED USB hub. – heynnema Mar 01 '22 at 16:42
  • @heynnema Most external USB hard drives come with MBRs from the factory, I think. I have two 2 TB USBs. low power supply may be a concern. – user68186 Mar 01 '22 at 16:45
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    @user68186 Yes, correct, up to 2TB, which is the partition size limit for the old "msdos" partitioning. GPT or, rarely, multiple partitions elsewhere. – ChanganAuto Mar 01 '22 at 17:17
  • @user68186 I edited with that I see in Disks after exFAT installation and reboot. – reloh100 Mar 02 '22 at 16:59
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    I am out of ideas. Try to use it ina different computer, friend's, school, office, etc. to rule out the possibility that the disk is a dud. – user68186 Mar 02 '22 at 20:59
  • cheers, will do, thank you anyway! – reloh100 Mar 08 '22 at 00:20

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