[DESKTOP] Can't get exfat ext ssd to work

[Murdoc]

I got an external ssd but can't get it to work with linux. When I plug it in, nothing happens, no pop-ups, can't find it in Dolphin. It has a little blue light that goes on when I plug it in.
I tried with my Kubuntu 20.04, didn't work. Tried other usb ports. Then looked it up, installed the exfat files (fuse/utils), still no luck. Checked it out on my Windows 10 side (same computer, same usb ports), and it works fine there (can see it, transfer files). People say that newer linux has native support, so I use this as motivation to upgrade to 22.04 (has Linux 5.15), but still nothing happens. Checked and exfat-fuse is still there, utils is replaced with exfatprogs, which seems like the same thing. Everything else I can find online seems to say that it should just work. KDE Partition Manager can see it, but provides no information on it. The only other thing I can think of was checking multiple times in both linux and windows to see if it was perhaps an intermittent problem. Now I'm at a loss.

[claydoh]

KDE Partition Manager can see it, but provides no information on it

What does it actually show?

What specific device is this? I wonder is this issue is something specific to this drive, or something in the way the manufacturer has set it up.
exfat has worked fine in Linux for some time, usually in *buntu all that is needed had been exfat-utils, now exfatprogs.

[Snowhog]

What make/model/size is the USB SSD? What is it formatted as?

Open Konsole. Plug the USB SSD in and when the 'little blue light' goes on, run: sudo dmesg

Copy the last 20 lines and paste here in your reply.

[Murdoc]

What does it actually show?

"USSD - 15.26 TiB (/dev/sdb)" no mount point, label, or the rest. There's no partition shown, and in Properties, there's no partition information, just capacity.

What specific device is this?

What make/model/size is the USB SSD?

Don't know. It was a gift, and there's no branding on it. The size is 2 x 15.26 TiB though.

Open Konsole. Plug the USB SSD in and when the 'little blue light' goes on, run: sudo dmesg
Copy the last 20 lines and paste here in your reply.

[25522.175321] usb 5-2: usbfs: interface 0 claimed by usbfs while 'ipp-usb' sets config Home
[25524.716591] usb 5-2: usbfs: interface 0 claimed by usbfs while 'ipp-usb' sets config Home
[25527.151773] usb 5-2: usbfs: interface 0 claimed by usbfs while 'ipp-usb' sets config Home
[25529.692322] usb 5-2: usbfs: interface 0 claimed by usbfs while 'ipp-usb' sets config Home
[25532.151957] usb 5-2: usbfs: interface 0 claimed by usbfs while 'ipp-usb' sets config Home
[25534.668486] usb 5-2: usbfs: interface 0 claimed by usbfs while 'ipp-usb' sets config Home
[25537.201213] usb 5-2: usbfs: interface 0 claimed by usbfs while 'ipp-usb' sets config Home
[25539.745373] usb 5-2: usbfs: interface 0 claimed by usbfs while 'ipp-usb' sets config Home
[25542.179476] usb 5-2: usbfs: interface 0 claimed by usbfs while 'ipp-usb' sets config Home
[25544.717091] usb 5-2: usbfs: interface 0 claimed by usbfs while 'ipp-usb' sets config Home
[25547.146957] usb 5-2: usbfs: interface 0 claimed by usbfs while 'ipp-usb' sets config Home
[25549.690507] usb 5-2: usbfs: interface 0 claimed by usbfs while 'ipp-usb' sets config Home
[25552.147902] usb 5-2: usbfs: interface 0 claimed by usbfs while 'ipp-usb' sets config Home
[25554.665694] usb 5-2: usbfs: interface 0 claimed by usbfs while 'ipp-usb' sets config Home
[25557.160837] usb 5-2: usbfs: interface 0 claimed by usbfs while 'ipp-usb' sets config Home
[25559.659224] usb 5-2: usbfs: interface 0 claimed by usbfs while 'ipp-usb' sets config Home

It's just like this a lot. There's some error messages in the middle though, like this:

[25000.414122] sd 13:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s
[25000.414125] sd 13:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 Sense Key : Illegal Request [current]
[25000.414127] sd 13:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 Add. Sense: Logical block address out of range
[25000.414129] sd 13:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 f4 23 ff f0 00 00 01 00
[25000.414130] blk_update_request: critical target error, dev sdb, sector 32767999872 op 0x0READ) flags 0x0
phys_seg 1 prio class 0
[25000.414135] Buffer I/O error on dev sdb, logical block 4095999984, async page read
[25000.790620] scsi 14:0:0:0: Direct-Access USSD USSD 5.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[25000.790852] sd 14:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
[25000.790985] sd 14:0:0:0: [sdc] Very big device. Trying to use READ CAPACITY(16).
[25000.791038] sd 14:0:0:0: [sdc] 4096000000 4096-byte logical blocks: (16.8 TB/15.3 TiB)
[25000.791093] sd 14:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
[25000.791094] sd 14:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 0b 00 00 08
[25000.791142] sd 14:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page found
[25000.791144] sd 14:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through

[claydoh]

2 x 15.26 TiB though.

Really ? 15.26 Terabytes?
Something is fishy An SSD that size would cost multiple thousands of dollars.
I smell a fake. Which is confusing Linux lol
I wonder if the partition tool or Gparted will let you wipe and re-partition it. Or even from Windows, and see if it is readable on Linux then?
At least to get some use out of it.

[Snowhog]

It was a gift, and there's no branding on it. The size is 2 x 15.26 TiB though.

No way can it be 2 x 15.26 TiB! I also smell a fake. I would not trust it as far as I could throw it.

[Murdoc]

Yeah, I had hard time believing it myself, but the friend who gave it to me is an IT tech and said she checked it out, although how I'm not sure. So I brought it home to see and am just trying to get it to work. Maybe I'll try reformatting it.

[ShadYoung]

Yeah, I had hard time believing it myself, but the friend who gave it to me is an IT tech and said she checked it out, although how I'm not sure. So I brought it home to see and am just trying to get it to work. Maybe I'll try reformatting it.

I know the device. It was making the tech rounds a couple of months back. I think it was on Amazon briefly until the fraud was discovered. It is a fake SSD that uses 2 SD cards inside, I think with a total capacity if 32gb, with a hacked chip to fool Windows into reporting the false size. You can test it by trying to copy a large amount of data and you will find that the earlier stuff gets overwritten. As others say... its garbage. I would open it up and remove the two SD cards and see if they still work.