File system error (?)

[heretical_1]

Not sure if this is a file system error, or something else. Began having issues that were eventually traced back to (a) intermittent power cutoff and (b) failing internal hard drive (although I do not understand why an internal drive is even necessary when an external drive is plugged into the usb port). Ok, so now I have removed the failed internal hard drive and replaced it with another, and added some more batteries to the battery bank. One of my external hard drives had begun having file system errors due to the power being suddenly cut off or due to the issues with the failing internal hard drive, and now...well, the screen shot shows what I am getting. Nothing I have tried has worked, but I admit to being less than a novice here. The external hard drive is 4 tb, and I believe, but am not sure, that it is ntfs. Am using antiX on a usb stick.
The external drive was being used as a backup, so if necessary I can (with proper directions) reformat it and then put the original info back on from the original source, but it sure would be easier if I could just fix it and then still have that info already on it.
Before offering advice, you may need to know some things. I am offgrid, with absolutely no means of connecting to the internet other than my phone, and no neighbors for miles. The computer does not have wifi or bluetooth capability at all, so anything that would need to be downloaded would need to be downloaded to the phone and then cabled to the computer...zero reception inside the house or within 20 feet of it.
With that in mind, please let me know if there are things I can try that might help. Thanks!

 

[heretical_1]

Not sure if this is a file system error, or something else. Began having issues that were eventually traced back to (a) intermittent power cutoff and (b) failing internal hard drive (although I do not understand why an internal drive is even necessary when an external drive is plugged into the usb port). Ok, so now I have removed the failed internal hard drive and replaced it with another, and added some more batteries to the battery bank. One of my external hard drives had begun having file system errors due to the power being suddenly cut off or due to the issues with the failing internal hard drive, and now...well, the screen shot shows what I am getting. Nothing I have tried has worked, but I admit to being less than a novice here. The external hard drive is 4 tb, and I believe, but am not sure, that it is ntfs. Am using antiX on a usb stick.
The external drive was being used as a backup, so if necessary I can (with proper directions) reformat it and then put the original info back on from the original source, but it sure would be easier if I could just fix it and then still have that info already on it.
Before offering advice, you may need to know some things. I am offgrid, with absolutely no means of connecting to the internet other than my phone, and no neighbors for miles. The computer does not have wifi or bluetooth capability at all, so anything that would need to be downloaded would need to be downloaded to the phone and then cabled to the computer...zero reception inside the house or within 20 feet of it.
With that in mind, please let me know if there are things I can try that might help. Thanks!

 

[APTI]

(although I do not understand why an internal drive is even necessary when an external drive is plugged into the usb port).

because this is where your operating system is being stored, unless you did something very unusual.

Ok, so now I have removed the failed internal hard drive and replaced it with another, and added some more batteries to the battery bank. One of my external hard drives had begun having file system errors due to the power being suddenly cut off or due to the issues with the failing internal hard drive, and now...well, the screen shot shows what I am getting. Nothing I have tried has worked, but I admit to being less than a novice here. The external hard drive is 4 tb, and I believe, but am not sure, that it is ntfs. Am using antiX on a usb stick.
The external drive was being used as a backup, so if necessary I can (with proper directions) reformat it and then put the original info back on from the original source, but it sure would be easier if I could just fix it and then still have that info already on it.
Before offering advice, you may need to know some things. I am offgrid, with absolutely no means of connecting to the internet other than my phone, and no neighbors for miles. The computer does not have wifi or bluetooth capability at all, so anything that would need to be downloaded would need to be downloaded to the phone and then cabled to the computer...zero reception inside the house or within 20 feet of it.
With that in mind, please let me know if there are things I can try that might help. Thanks!

Before you go trying to solve computer problems you need to fix the source which you have already figured out is your power source. If your power source cuts out during any disk operation or before cache is flushed, you WILL have issues including complete loss. So solve your power issues first before you consider anything on the computer.

You will need to run ntfsfix on your ntfs drive to try to fix errors. Also run the appropriate fix on internal and all other drives depending on how you formatted them. In the future I would not use ntfs unless you are sharing with windows. otherwise btrfs or ext4 should be your choices. And when sharing something with windows users such as on a usb chip think about using fat32 unless you have files over 4GB.

To help more it would be useful to know what linux you are using, what the filesystems are and what your boot drive is. The novice tends to make alot of mistakes that complicates your life and computer, so this kind of information plus specs on the computer will help us to help you.

 

[Smilax]

I do not understand why an internal drive is even necessary when an external drive is plugged into the usb port

Is that external USB drive the one you're booting and running Linux from?

 

[heretical_1]

No. I am using antiX on a usb stick to boot up the system and for copying files from one external hard drive to another.

 

[heretical_1]

because this is where your operating system is being stored, unless you did something very unusual.

Before you go trying to solve computer problems you need to fix the source which you have already figured out is your power source. If your power source cuts out during any disk operation or before cache is flushed, you WILL have issues including complete loss. So solve your power issues first before you consider anything on the computer.

You will need to run ntfsfix on your ntfs drive to try to fix errors. Also run the appropriate fix on internal and all other drives depending on how you formatted them. In the future I would not use ntfs unless you are sharing with windows. otherwise btrfs or ext4 should be your choices. And when sharing something with windows users such as on a usb chip think about using fat32 unless you have files over 4GB.

To help more it would be useful to know what linux you are using, what the filesystems are and what your boot drive is. The novice tends to make alot of mistakes that complicates your life and computer, so this kind of information plus specs on the computer will help us to help you.

I am using antiX on a usb stick to boot up and run the system. The external hard drives are used for storing and transferring data, but not really for actually using them...I tend to transfer files to my phone to use for reading pdf's or watching videos. I did try using " df -h" to see if I could determine anything about the random internal hard drive that i replaced the dying one with, but it seems to only show details about the thumbdrive containing the antiX.

 

[Smilax]

 

[Smilax]

View attachment 32773

I am using antiX on a usb stick to boot up and run the system. The external hard drives are used for storing and transferring data, but not really for actually using them...I tend to transfer files to my phone to use for reading pdf's or watching videos. I did try using " df -h" to see if I could determine anything about the random internal hard drive that i replaced the dying one with, but it seems to only show details about the thumbdrive contaibing the antiX.

I like to play with spinning hard discs for nostalgia reasons, I inherit used hard drives often, and use GSmartControl to view SMART information on the drives before any serious use. Do you do this or something similar?

edit: Sounds like an interesting use case honestly. While I am totally unfamiliar with antiX (had to look it up) it seems the appropriate OS for what you're trying to do.

 

[heretical_1]

I like to play with spinning hard discs for nostalgia reasons, I inherit used hard drives often, and use GSmartControl to view SMART information on the drives before any serious use. Do you do this or something similar?

No idea what you are talking about, although I do have a stack of maybe 50 or more old hard drive discs that I removed when I was doing a lot of scrapping and disassembling of computers. The intent is to use them as reflective surfaces to make parabolic dishes.