My Book Essential WD (Western Digital) external drive on Linux

[Deleted member 155466]

What size is the drive? Legacy BIOS doesn't (usually) recognize anything larger than 2TB.

sudo fdisk /dev/sdX
o
w

That will put a dos/mbr partition table on the drive. Replace the X with whatever letter your drive is.

sudo fdisk /dev/sdX
n
p
Which partition: [enter] for partition 1
First Sector: [enter] for 2048 (first sector)
Last Sector: +1900M
Do you want to remove btrfs signature?: Y
w

That will create a 1.9TB partition

You can do this with gparted as well.
Size in MiB = 1905796

If it's one partition, don't go larger than that.
If it's two or more partitions, make sure the total isn't larger than that.

If you're trying to do this from Windows, it's harder, There is a tool called diskinternals research for Linux filesystems
that has helped me in the past. It recognizes ext4 and xfs, I don't know about btrfs.

The size of the drive is less than 2T
(user@user)-[/media]
└─$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 0 465.8G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 1M 0 part
├─sda2 8:2 0 513M 0 part
├─sda3 8:3 0 195.3G 0 part /
├─sda4 8:4 0 1G 0 part
├─sda5 8:5 0 1G 0 part
├─sda6 8:6 0 230.6G 0 part
├─sda7 8:7 0 1G 0 part
├─sda8 8:8 0 1.3G 0 part
├─sda9 8:9 0 40.9M 0 part
└─sda10 8:10 0 33.5G 0 part
sdb 8:16 1 29.2G 0 disk
└─sdb1 8:17 1 29.2G 0 part /media/guess/USB STICK3
sdc 8:32 1 0B 0 disk
sdd 8:48 1 0B 0 disk
sde 8:64 1 0B 0 disk
sdf 8:80 1 0B 0 disk
sdg 8:96 0 1.8T 0 disk
└─sdg1 8:97 0 1.8T 0 part /mnt/wwn-0x50014ee1af664abf-part1
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom

(sdg is the external Hard Drive)

(user@user)-[/media]
└─$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 465.76 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: ST3500418AS
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: FC6CD2EB-A4B4-4874-8FF6-C75E9CB5E118

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 4095 2048 1M BIOS boot
/dev/sda2 4096 1054719 1050624 513M EFI System
/dev/sda3 1054720 410654329 409599610 195.3G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda4 488912898 491010049 2097152 1G EFI System
/dev/sda5 491010050 493107201 2097152 1G EFI System
/dev/sda6 493107202 976773119 483665918 230.6G EFI System
/dev/sda7 484154605 486251756 2097152 1G EFI System
/dev/sda8 486251757 488912896 2661140 1.3G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda9 484070741 484154603 83863 40.9M EFI System
/dev/sda10 410654720 480967219 70312500 33.5G Linux filesystem

Partition table entries are not in disk order.


Disk /dev/sdb: 29.18 GiB, 31331450880 bytes, 61194240 sectors
Disk model: Cruzer Edge
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x809ca075

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1 2048 61194239 61192192 29.2G c W95 FAT32 (LBA)


Disk /dev/sdg: 1.82 TiB, 2000365289472 bytes, 3906963456 sectors
Disk model: My Book 1140
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x53837647

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdg1 2048 3906963455 3906961408 1.8T 83 Linux

(user@user)-[/media]
└─$ sudo fdisk /dev/sdg
[sudo] password for user:

Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.40.4).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.


Command (m for help): m

Help:

DOS (MBR)
a toggle a bootable flag
b edit nested BSD disklabel
c toggle the dos compatibility flag

Generic
d delete a partition
F list free unpartitioned space
l list known partition types
n add a new partition
p print the partition table
t change a partition type
v verify the partition table
i print information about a partition
e resize a partition

Misc
m print this menu
u change display/entry units
x extra functionality (experts only)

Script
I load disk layout from sfdisk script file
O dump disk layout to sfdisk script file

Save & Exit
w write table to disk and exit
q quit without saving changes

Create a new label
g create a new empty GPT partition table
G create a new empty SGI (IRIX) partition table
o create a new empty MBR (DOS) partition table
s create a new empty Sun partition table


Command (m for help): d
Selected partition 1
Partition 1 has been deleted.

Command (m for help): F
Unpartitioned space /dev/sdg: 1.82 TiB, 2000364240896 bytes, 3906961408 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Start End Sectors Size
2048 3906963455 3906961408 1.8T

Command (m for help): a
No partition is defined yet!
(i have formatted the partition)


P.S. Attached you can see that I tried to format the sdg partition as Exfat but without success
to later install Linux Mint

 

[Deleted member 155466]

That will put a dos/mbr partition table on the drive. Replace the X with whatever letter your drive is.

Command (m for help): n
Partition type
p primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
e extended (container for logical partitions)
Select (default p): p
Partition number (1-4, default 1): 1
First sector (2048-3906963455, default 2048):
Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P} (2048-3906963455, default 3906963455): +1900

Created a new partition 1 of type 'Linux' and of size 950.5 KiB.

The output above it's ok?

 

[Deleted member 155466]

I completely deleted the internal disk (I created an unplaced space) of the WD MY Book using GParted, then I divided it into two partitions, the first of about 500GB that I formatted as EXT4 and the second as unallocated space) I installed Linux Mint Xia on WD's external disk, in the bios menu pressing the Escape key there is WD My Book but it does not start, only a black screen comes out. Attached is the screenshot of GParted.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Legacy BIOS doesn't (usually) recognize anything larger than 2TB.

This pretty much answers the problem IMO.

@hacktheworld
Your BIOS should be set to UEFI mode and your disk should be rcognized in BIOS, you verify that first, if you drive is recognized in BIOS then it's not Linux problem.

The drive must have GPT partition table but you formatted it as DOS/MBR, so this won't work.

 

[Deleted member 155466]

This pretty much answers the problem IMO.

@hacktheworld
Your BIOS should be set to UEFI mode and your disk should be rcognized in BIOS, you verify that first, if you drive is recognized in BIOS then it's not Linux problem.

The drive must have GPT partition table but you formatted it as DOS/MBR, so this won't work.

My computer is a 2009 hp p6232it, I checked by pressing the F10 key, I didn't see any option regarding UEFI.

How should I format the partition? if I understand correctly GPT, is only for UEFI

 

[CaffeineAddict]

My computer is a 2009 hp p6232it, I checked by pressing the F10 key, I didn't see any option regarding UEFI.

If your mobo firmware is BIOS and not UEFI I don't think there is not much you can do.

How should I format the partition? if I understand correctly GPT, is only for UEFI

Yes UEFI requires GPT partition table on your drive in order for the drive to be bootable.
You format it to GPT with fdisk with g option, and then add one primary partition, GPT supports only primary partitions.

 

[dos2unix]

Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P} (2048-3906963455, default 3906963455): +1900

Created a new partition 1 of type 'Linux' and of size 950.5 KiB.

Sorry, I was out last week. You have to have the M at the end. +1900M