USB external drive not detected in linux mint

[eddd83]

My linux laptop is not detecting my primary external hard drive. The light indicator on the primary external drive is not even illuminating when plugged into the laptop.
This primary external hard drive is detected and works normally on my windows desktop. The USB ports on my linux laptop work with other flash drives and other external hard drives. However it seems like something wrong with this particular primary external hard drive.

 

[Brickwizard]

Is this drive holding an operating system or just storage? and which distribution?

 

[eddd83]

i use this external hard drive to back up some files on my linux laptop. I'm using linux mint cinnamon.

 

[Brickwizard]

Connect the drive, Click on computer [usually top left icon on the desktop] and open is your usb drive showing then right click on it and select mount if its not showing there could be a connection problem

 

[eddd83]

for whatever reason, when i connected my external drive this time, it finally detected. so frustrating. thanks replying though

 

[Brickwizard]

it finally detected. so frustrating.

Welcome to the forums,
I suspect [depending on the age and usage ] you may have either a defective cable, a worn usb connection or more likely dirt in the connections causing an intermittent dry joint

 

[eddd83]

after some more experimentation, it does seem like the cable is causing the problem here. This is so strange, because on my windows desktop, i could connect with the "defective" cable

 

[Brickwizard]

A dry joint is a difficult to find intermittent fault, my best advice [as i cant get my hands on it to test] is to unplug and reconnect ALL the connection points 3 or 4 times, this will normally clear the problem