Trying to backup to external HDD, but it keeps unmounting within a few seconds of being mounted. The same drive works without isssue in debian. Any suggestions?
try to find out what’s wrong with drive:
either
sudo dmesg -w
or
sudo journactl -f
should shed some light …
your box seems to be every old.
and I guess the drives too.
What I get from the log is:
the kernel crashes (GPU driver ?)
your drives are in trouble, too.
===
drive /dev/sdf1 need an fsck.
I guess the correct point to read is
man fsck.exfat
===
try to get another backup drive before doing backups on it and/or do anything with the drive until it’s clear what kind of trouble the drive has (my first reading: seems the drive is dying …)
my suggestions:
a) unplug all external drives your currently don’t need.
b) reboot the box
c) run sudo dmesg -w (to get the correct device name)
replug only the backup drive
d) the drive needs an smartmon run:
sudo smartctl -t short /dev/<the correct device name here>
(without “<“ and “>” !!!; should be something like “sde”; )
will start the test and should run some minutes (test end will be written out, something like “Test will complete after …”)
e) afterwards post the output of
sudo smartctl -a /dev/<the correct device name here>
(without “<“ and “>” !!!)
fsck from util-linux 2.40.4
e2fsck 1.47.2 (1-Jan-2025)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
/dev/sde: 292775/122101760 files (0.1% non-contiguous), 121948810/488378646 blocks
sudo smartctl -a /dev/sde
smartctl 7.5 2025-04-30 r5714 [x86_64-linux-6.18.4-100.fc42.x86_64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-25, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Toshiba 2.5" HDD MQ04UBD…
Device Model: TOSHIBA MQ04UBD200
Serial Number: 85GQP32UT
LU WWN Device Id: 0 000000 000000000
Firmware Version: JT0B0U
User Capacity: 2,000,398,934,016 bytes [2.00 TB]
Sector Sizes: 512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate: 5400 rpm
Form Factor: 2.5 inches
Zoned Device: Device managed zones
Device is: In smartctl database 7.5/6061
ATA Version is: ACS-3 T13/2161-D revision 5
SATA Version is: SATA 3.3, 3.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Wed Jan 14 22:32:07 2026 GMT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x00) Offline data collection activity
was never started.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 120) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x5b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
No Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 335) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x003d) SCT Status supported.
SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000b 100 100 050 Pre-fail Always - 0
2 Throughput_Performance 0x0005 100 100 050 Pre-fail Offline - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 100 100 001 Pre-fail Always - 2300
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 173
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 050 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000b 100 100 050 Pre-fail Always - 0
8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0005 100 100 050 Pre-fail Offline - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 79
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0033 103 100 030 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 135
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 114
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 303
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 29 (Min/Max 17/40)
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
220 Disk_Shift 0x0002 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
222 Loaded_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 14
223 Load_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
224 Load_Friction 0x0022 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
226 Load-in_Time 0x0026 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 186
240 Head_Flying_Hours 0x0001 100 100 001 Pre-fail Offline - 0
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
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% 0 -
SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.
The above only provides legacy SMART information - try ‘smartctl -x’ for more
to me the disk looks sane.
last idea is that the drive doesn’t gets enough power to operate.
Spec’s only tell what power is drawn while reading, but not while writing.
so try plugging it to an USB3 port
and only the backup drive while doing backups.
run in an terminal sudo dmesg -w while the backup drive is unplugged.
plug it in
post only the part since it was plugged
+++ Edit +++
you bought the disk and the case separat ?
Background: enough power for the disk to operate reliable ?