[solved]HDD not visible to live usb

I'm running version 8.1 64-bit on a live usb stick. I would like to copy the contents of the HDD to another usb-stick and then perform a full install of Zorin. Once done with that I want to copy back all the original personal content to the HDD. Can anyone explain why the HDD does not appear? I can see the live usb and I can see any other memory device via the file manager, but the sata HDD remains non-viewable.

The os that was on the HDD is LinuxMint mate. It seems that all of the single user id should match those used by zorin as far as I've been able to figure out. It's a puzzle to me why the main drive seems to be hidden.

Hi,

can you open Gparted (Zorin Menu > System Tools > Admin > Gparted) and take a screenshot of your partition layout(s) and paste them here, maybe the problem lies with your partition table(s) and/or layout?.

[img]file:///media/0A01-7191/Screenshot%20from%202014-04-17%2013_33_20.png[/img]

I booted up the LM and made a copy of /home onto the usb stick. Installed Zorin, copied files to new install. I had the Zorin 8 64-bit install itself, reformat and use the entire HDD.

The boot usb stick, still will not see the HDD via the file manager. Gparted does see it. Screenshot attached. As I recollect, I think I had put an SSD drive for HDD when I built this computer last year. The file manager shouldn't care about that should it?

In transferring important files to /root requiring root powers was a little on the difficult side. Can't seem to "su" into root from the cmd line. Can't seem to login as root either. How do you get access to root privileges the manual way?

I checked the pkg mgr for terminals with root powers and file managers with same, no joy. I did find a forum suggestion using alt+F2, no joy, does nothing. And then I found a gksudo nautilus that brought up such a file manager and after several attempts and unexplained crashes I was successful in getting fonts installed in /usr/share/fonts and they are working. Seems there should be a better way.

Hi,

possible it cannot read that type of format and that is why it cannot be read!. Your Linux partitions (root & home) should be EXT4.

Originally, the HDD was a Win7 upgraded to a Win8. The Live ISO would not let me see the contents of the HDD. After re-partitioning and installing Linux, a Live OS8 ISO, still will not let me view the HDD.

This isn't great at all. If the Hdd will not boot because of issues, I can't use an OS8 Live iso to rescue the contents. File manager needs to be able to see everything that stores files, not just the live iso.

Hi yonnie,

did you check Dconf Editor (dconf-tools):

Stop/Start Media Auto Mounting:

Dconf Editor > Org > Gnome > Desktop > Media-Handling > Automount/Automount-open/Autorun Never

Can you paste another pic of your partition layout after you reformatted and installed please?.

It won't let you see the drive because of Windows 8 'sleep mode' of the hard drive! Boot into Windows 8 and go to 'Advanced Power Settings' - Gizmuntu posted the answer on here will see if I can find it:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6459&p=30853&hilit=Windows+8+power+settings#p30853

I was able to see the drive via PCLOS live usb. The Zorin one doesn't seem to be very useful. Now that I've moved the HDD to a different computer the HDD can be seen but not read or copied by the file manager. All the files have a little red X on them. The original AE2010 has been shipped to owner's house with Zorin8 and no longer accessible to me. Another happy user set free from windows.

yonnie wrote:I was able to see the drive via PCLOS live usb. The Zorin one doesn't seem to be very useful. Now that I've moved the HDD to a different computer the HDD can be seen but not read or copied by the file manager. All the files have a little red X on them. The original AE2010 has been shipped to owner's house with Zorin8 and no longer accessible to me. Another happy user set free from windows.

Hi yonnie,

did you do a copy & paste action per chance?, I ask because you are describing something that shows when someone has "Copied & Pasted" a root file and they didn't set all the permissions before doing so!.

The first time it was windows and the zorin file manager couldn't even see the drive. Since LM uses the same kind of user permissions as Zorin, I used LM to copy the personal files on the windows hdd to a large thumb-drive. Then I let the zorin os8 erase and use the entire windows drive, but since it would crash during install I had to do the install using a different mobo in a tower. (The os8 doesn't like the ati graphics, whereas os6 does) Then I transferred the new install to the ae2010, ran all the updates, then transferred all the personal files and voila! A new baby was born! Zorin OS8 with all the personal data from win8 useable and working. But booting from a live iso still leaves the personal files locked out via the file manager. User ID is 1000, seems this should be copyable and readable from the live iso. It seems buggy having to do all this work-around stuff just to copy and save files. OS8 can see the hdd if it's linux but won't see files that are win8, maybe it's the sleep thing but I have no way to check as the win8 is gone, ditched, history, flushed, trashed, etc... .

Hi, I think it will be the Windows 8 sleep thing - I am back in this situation after a Windows 8 update, so will have to remember next time I am in there to turn it off again!

Can this thread be marked as [SOLVED] now?