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maria
Asked: 2018-08-06 04:23:04 +0800 CST

external drive is disconnecting, GParted warning "input/output error during read on /dev/sdb"

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I'm using Ubuntu 16.04 on Dell Vostro.

I have a problem to use external hard drive. When I plug it, first it works, but in some time it unmount by itself (while reading data or not).

While the drive was mounted, I tried to open GParted, got the warning input/output error during read on /dev/sdb, and had to kill the process in the terminal.

I tried to use smartctl, but it failed:

$ sudo smartctl -a dev/sdb | less
dev/sdb: Unable to detect device type 
Please specify device type with the -d option.

First I thought that the external drive is broken, but I've tried with another one, I was also trying to change the USB cable and the behavior is exactly the same.

I still can see the drive in Nautilus, but I can't open the folder (Unable to access location. Can't mount file) and I can't see it with lsblk command.

I use the USB ports with my phone without any issues, so I assume that they're fine.

I've run dmesg in terminal. The output is long, I'm pasting only the lines which point to errors:

[   22.055520] usb 2-1.5: device descriptor read/64, error -110
[  776.281556] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[  776.281563] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 28 00 00 00
[  776.281881] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found 
[  776.281899] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through 
[  776.308840]  sdb: sdb1
[  776.309940] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk 
[ 5113.058945] [drm:intel_set_pch_fifo_underrun_reporting [i915]] *ERROR* uncleared pch fifo underrun on pch transcoder A 
[ 5113.059011] [drm:intel_pch_fifo_underrun_irq_handler [i915]] *ERROR* PCH  transcoder A FIFO underrun

I didn't find what error -110 means.

UPDATE 2:

Thanks to the comment I've managed to run smartctl. There is part of the output of smartctl -a /dev/sdb | less:

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      8872         -
# 2  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%      8872         -
mount external-hdd

1 Answers

  1. Input/output errors are most often caused by hardware issues. These can be as simple as a loose cable, all the way up to and including a failing disk device.

    Since you indicated that the disk device is sometimes not detected, the problem does seem to be hardware related. If a new USB cable does not work, then you might also try a different USB port, or a different computer.

    When an error occurs, you can also run the dmesg command to learn more about the disk device error.

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