Q4OS Forum

radko

Member

Registered: 2026-04-21

Posts: 15

Error mount external USB drive

I cann't mount external drive
"Error mounting /dev/sda1 at /media/radko/TV: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error"

Previously I had no problem with this drive.

hchiper

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2020-07-28

Posts: 837

Re: Error mount external USB drive

Strange that you try to mount sda1. Usually it is the name of the filesystem which contains the whole system and it is already mounted.
Please run `$ lsblk` ant post the output.

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Q4OS machine: Samsung R519 - Pentium T4200 2.0 GHz - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB SSD

radko

Member

Registered: 2026-04-21

Posts: 15

Re: Error mount external USB drive

Thanks for support
"adko@latitude5400:~$ lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
loop0         7:0    0 164,8M  1 loop /snap/gnome-3-28-1804/198
loop1         7:1    0  91,7M  1 loop /snap/gtk-common-themes/1535
loop2         7:2    0 614,5M  1 loop /snap/gnome-46-2404/164
loop3         7:3    0   402M  1 loop /snap/mesa-2404/1839
loop4         7:4    0  63,8M  1 loop /snap/core20/2866
loop5         7:5    0  66,8M  1 loop /snap/core24/1643
loop6         7:6    0     4K  1 loop /snap/bare/5
loop7         7:7    0  55,5M  1 loop /snap/core18/2999
loop8         7:8    0 407,9M  1 loop /snap/obs-studio/1322
loop9         7:9    0 408,6M  1 loop /snap/obs-studio/1324
loop10        7:10   0  50,1M  1 loop /snap/snapd/27591
loop11        7:11   0  50,1M  1 loop /snap/snapd/27710
sda           8:0    0 465,8G  0 disk
└─sda1        8:1    0 465,8G  0 part
nvme0n1     259:0    0 238,5G  0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0   100M  0 part /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2    0    16M  0 part
├─nvme0n1p3 259:3    0 124,6G  0 part /mnt/DANE
├─nvme0n1p4 259:4    0   977M  0 part
└─nvme0n1p5 259:5    0 112,8G  0 part /"

hchiper

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2020-07-28

Posts: 837

Re: Error mount external USB drive

OK, your internal disk is nvme0n1. Your external disk sda is detected, with the sda1 partition.

When you connect it, don't you see a popup to mount it?

From your OP, it seems you tried to mount it manually. Which command did you use exactly and are sure the parameters are correct?

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Q4OS machine: Samsung R519 - Pentium T4200 2.0 GHz - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB SSD

radko

Member

Registered: 2026-04-21

Posts: 15

Re: Error mount external USB drive

Yes I see popup mount but it gives eror message

hchiper

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2020-07-28

Posts: 837

Re: Error mount external USB drive

Hmmm... "Nie można podpiąć tego urządzenia" = "This device cannot be connected"...

Run `sudo parted -l` (with a lowercase L for "list") and post the output.
If you get a command not found error, run `$ sudo apt install parted` and try again.

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Q4OS machine: Samsung R519 - Pentium T4200 2.0 GHz - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB SSD

radko

Member

Registered: 2026-04-21

Posts: 15

Re: Error mount external USB drive

Model: Toshiba External USB 3.0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number  Start   End    Size   Type     File system  Flags
1      32,3kB  500GB  500GB  primary  ntfs

hchiper

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2020-07-28

Posts: 837

Re: Error mount external USB drive

Your drive is formatted as NTFS. To mount it, the ntfs-3g package is needed; check if is is installed: `$ apt list ntfs-3d`.

If it is not installed, run `$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install ntfs-3g` then reconnect your drive and see if it can be mounted.

If it can't, maybe the disk was used under Windows and was not removed cleanly; can it still be read under Windows?

Last edited by hchiper (2026-08-28 19:33)

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Q4OS machine: Samsung R519 - Pentium T4200 2.0 GHz - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB SSD

radko

Member

Registered: 2026-04-21

Posts: 15

Re: Error mount external USB drive

I connect disc to windows I found linux files from Quark OS install.
I deleted all this files and now I can mount this disk in linux.
Thanks all for help.

Last edited by radko (2026-08-29 05:08)

hchiper

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2020-07-28

Posts: 837

Re: Error mount external USB drive

I didn't expect that Quark OS installer would have created an msdos partition table and used an NTFS formatting.
Depending on how you want to use your external disk, it might be advisable to use another type of partition table (GPT) and/or formatting (FAT32, EXT4).
For example, if you plan to use this drive to store backups created with Back-in-time, you'll need EXT4 because Back-in-time needs to create hard links and FAT32 or NTFS don't support them, only EXT4 does.

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Q4OS machine: Samsung R519 - Pentium T4200 2.0 GHz - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB SSD