Cannot mount external harddrive

*2. What I had perceived to be fan noise was HD disk spinning.

Can you read the data on that partition from another system? Copy them somewhere so that you would not lose anything formatting? Formatting can be done from Trisquel. Even from from Trisquel' live system, using GParted.

That error sometimes means that you don't have the necessary file system support installed. If that drive was used with MacOS, it probably has HFS+ or APFS, which I don't think Trisquel has installed out-of-the-box. You can try lsblk -f to find out the file system type. If it's HFS+, you will need to install hfsprogs and/or hfsplus. If it's APFS, you can try apfsprogs.

If this isn't enough information, please post the output of `lsblk -f`.

Dear bernie and Magic Banana,

Using the Disk application in MATE, I realized the partition was inaccessible. Thankfully, I have access to another Apple computer. Using Disk Utility app in MacOS, I am attempting to create a large enough partition to transfer files, then increase partition size, repeat process, until all visible folders are in the MS DOS (FAT) partition.

Initially, I created a partition as large as all the available space on hard drive, which resulted in hours long wait to receive error on MacOS after ‘shrinking file system’ step on menu. MacOS suggested to pick smaller partition size, which I did and have been waiting past hour or two for process to complete.

If my other hard drive had enough space, I would transfer it over. I’d like to avoid buying another. I’ll update you on the results of this method.

Dear bernie and Alice Wilton,

Thank you for redirecting my attention. Before sinking further into the long aforementioned process, I installed the packages you both mentioned. After I installed them, I restarted the computer and tried to mount the HD from Disks application on MATE, and received a similar error.

Error mounting /dev/sdb2 at /media/USER/G-DRIVE Mobile: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb2, missing codepage or helper program, or other error (udisks-error-quark, 0)

I also ran the command bernie suggested. Here is the output:

Dear Alice Wilton,

I transferred back the data I moved and deleted the partition in hope to preserve data. I ran the second read-write mode code first. Received this error:

sudo mount -t hfsplus /dev/sdc2 /mnt
mount: /mnt: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdc2, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.


Then I reran bernie's command:

Then, I tried the first line of code you suggested, and received the error again.

sudo mount -t hfsplus /dev/sdc2 /mnt
mount: /mnt: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdc2, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.


Dear Alice Wilton,

I haven't been successful. The first method produced this error:

sudo mount /dev/sdc2 -t hfsplus -o ro,sizelimit=134217728
mount: /dev/sdc2: can't find in /etc/fstab.

For the second method, the first step, MacOS Internet Recovery mode terminal command diskutil cs list results showed under the groups > Physical Volume

Index: 0
Disk: disk4s2
Status: Online
Size: long numbers (999.9 GB)


> Logical Volume

Encryption Type: None

> Logical Volume:

Disk: disk5
Status: Online
Size (Total): long numbers B(999.5GB)
Revertible: Yes (no decryption required)
...names...
Content: Apple_HFS

However, when I ran the second step command I received this error:

diskutil cs revert /dev/ disk5
diskutil: did not recognize coreStorage verb "revert"; type "diskutil coreStorage" for a list

Upon further searches, I read Apple removed this function from updated software. If I run into an older version, then I will try it again.

Thank you for taking the time to help me. Do you think there is an alternative or should I continue with the partitioning and re-partitioning with another format? The options are AFPS, Mac OS Extended and MS-DOS (FAT).

Dear Alice Wilton,

The physical volume is described as Time Machine and Files. I believe this is the cause of the difficulty, but I am not sure what to do about it. I think I do not have the Time Machine backup password.

I've edited the post above please see.

Dear bernie,

I attempted Alice Wilton's step again, however I received a similar error:

sudo mount /dev/sdc2 -t hfsplus -o ro,sizelimit=134217728 /mnt/
[sudo] password for USER:
mount: /mnt: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop0, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.


I was able to borrow another harddrive and Mac from someone. My plan is to temporarily transfer files on the MacOS computer, partition the majority of my HD to APFS linux accessible partition, since I cannot resize as I had expected. Yet, the borrowed HD is APFS and it did not mount on Trisquel Macbook Pro. ....: unknown filesystem type 'apfs'. I will troubleshoot it with same steps as before and will search online for more help.

I will update you on the results.

I observed before installing Trisquel, my USB keyboard or mouse wouldn't work in random orders. Sometimes the mouse, sometimes the keyboard. Mostly the keyboard near the power source. It often resolved itself if I restarted the computer and unplugged the power source at start up. I felt as if these were "monkey fixes", illusory solutions to complex problems. I tried booting without power cable again to see if it helped the computer cooperate with the USB port, and I did notice the /dev/ port name changed.

> My plan is to temporarily transfer files on the MacOS computer, partition the majority of my HD to APFS linux accessible partition, since I cannot resize as I had expected.

Another way would be to connect the MacOS computer and your MacBook running Trisquel to the same local network, and have the MacOS computer share the HDD via the network (with the SMB protocol, that is well supported by Windows, GNU/Linux, other OSs) so you can make a copy of all the data to your MacBook running Trisquel via the network.

That way, no need for any kind of partioning.

It should be easy to access the shared HDD from Trisquel, via the file manager (caja).

Hi cosmicadventure,

Not sure if the solution in this video could be of help, just in case, I'm adding a link for you to check. Although this is a solution for a non-booting machine, it seems to offer options that could do the trick, I hope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDs8XXW_oGo

"In this video I'll show you how to use Ubuntu 20.04 and libfsapfs-utils to extract files from a non-booting Mac. You won't need to take apart the computer or make any permanent changes to the hardware and all of the software tools used are free."

And how about booting from Trisquel instead of Ubuntu :)

Thank you all for the great info - I'll bookmark this thread for reference!

Thank you everyone for your patience and help. I hope my struggles will inform a more serious technical issue.

The issue has been solved. It was user error. I think I mistakenly formatted the extra harddrive as APFS before a long data transfer without checking first, which resulted in me giving up on searching for potential mistakes in my process.

I formatted an SSD drive to 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' using a borrowed MacOS Macbook and 'Disk Utility' app. I checked and it was able to mount on the Trisquel Mac with hfsplus and aforementioned tools installed. I transferred the files in increments to avoid errors. The information is now available on the SSD, but read-only, which I hope I can change.