On 31/03/2025 12:50, Andy Burns wrote:

jkn wrote:

the laptop does emit a notification 'ping' when I connect or
disconnect the cable.

if you're getting the PnP bing-bong, it should at least show up under
device manager, o not the look in event viewer for disastrous disk errors.

Yes, that's what I thought. But there is nothing under "Disk Drives" or
"USB devices"

I am not very familiar with Event Viewer - I took a very brief look but
perhaps I will have to investigate that further.

whether it shows in disk management is more related to whether windows
likes the look of the partition table and file system thsat linux wrote
to the disk ...

Yes, that's why I said I 'took a step back' and wiped this disk - to
give Windows a chance to say 'format this for you?'

Thanks
J^n

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On 31/03/2025 12:50, Andy Burns wrote:

jkn wrote:

the laptop does emit a notification 'ping' when I connect or
disconnect the cable.

if you're getting the PnP bing-bong, it should at least show up under
device manager, o not the look in event viewer for disastrous disk errors.

whether it shows in disk management is more related to whether windows
likes the look of the partition table and file system thsat linux wrote
to the disk ...

I am beginning to think this is a basic problem with this laptop. I know
it has RAM issues (one reason I am trying to back up files); but it also
won't mount standard USB flash 'pendrives'.

I have found devices being listed under 'Other Devices' in Device
Manager, but "USB Mass Storage Driver" seems not to be present ... and I
am having trouble applying an update to install this.

I may have to do this another way before getting the laptop in for repair/scrapping.

J^n

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jkn <jkn+es@nicorp.co.uk> wrote:

I am beginning to think this is a basic problem with this laptop. I know
it has RAM issues (one reason I am trying to back up files); but it also won't mount standard USB flash 'pendrives'.

I have found devices being listed under 'Other Devices' in Device
Manager, but "USB Mass Storage Driver" seems not to be present ... and I
am having trouble applying an update to install this.

I may have to do this another way before getting the laptop in for repair/scrapping.

Using another USB device, see if you can boot a Linux live DVD/USB on it and then plug in the SSD. That'll tell you:

1. whether USB is working at all, if it won't boot from USB
2. whether your particular USB SSD will talk to it on this hardware
3. whether Windows is playing silly buggers

My money is on number 3...

Theo

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On 4/2/25 11:21, Theo wrote:

jkn <jkn+es@nicorp.co.uk> wrote:

I am beginning to think this is a basic problem with this laptop. I know
it has RAM issues (one reason I am trying to back up files); but it also
won't mount standard USB flash 'pendrives'.

I have found devices being listed under 'Other Devices' in Device
Manager, but "USB Mass Storage Driver" seems not to be present ... and I
am having trouble applying an update to install this.

I may have to do this another way before getting the laptop in for
repair/scrapping.

Using another USB device, see if you can boot a Linux live DVD/USB on it and then plug in the SSD. That'll tell you:

1. whether USB is working at all, if it won't boot from USB
2. whether your particular USB SSD will talk to it on this hardware
3. whether Windows is playing silly buggers

My money is on number 3...

Theo

My money would be on 1. I don't know much about laptops, but mu small experience tells me that USB ports do break.

jkn: why can't you backup to another computer via a LAN/WLAN? If you
are scrapping the device anyway.

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On 4/2/25 15:47, Abandoned Trolley wrote:

jkn: why can't you backup to another computer via a  LAN/WLAN? If you
are scrapping the device anyway.

And surely theres more than one USB port on the thing ?

Yebbut. my son would break on and then move onto the next.

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On 02/04/2025 11:21, Theo wrote:

jkn <jkn+es@nicorp.co.uk> wrote:

I am beginning to think this is a basic problem with this laptop. I know
it has RAM issues (one reason I am trying to back up files); but it also
won't mount standard USB flash 'pendrives'.

I have found devices being listed under 'Other Devices' in Device
Manager, but "USB Mass Storage Driver" seems not to be present ... and I
am having trouble applying an update to install this.

I may have to do this another way before getting the laptop in for
repair/scrapping.

Using another USB device, see if you can boot a Linux live DVD/USB on it and then plug in the SSD. That'll tell you:

1. whether USB is working at all, if it won't boot from USB
2. whether your particular USB SSD will talk to it on this hardware
3. whether Windows is playing silly buggers

My money is on number 3...

Hi Theo
Yes I tried this sort of thing, with a Knoppix pendrive, but ran
into different problems:

- The BIOS is seeing all the drives I plugged in - SSD or Flash pendrives
- I had a bit of trouble setting the drive to boot from...
- I then started to get Bitlocker errors ... this may have been a red
herring, but I realised that if the drive I want to backup is encrypted
with bitlocker (it is, I think) then then Knoppix would not be able to
sensibly read it, I think.

To answer other points - yes, I have tried different ports (I mentioned
also using one when the laptop was powered via a docking station).

I am not very familiar with eg. mounting a remove Linux drive on a
windows machine, but I think I have been able to get where I want to
using Seafile (as an alternative to Nextcloud)

J^n

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On 31/03/2025 11:38, jkn wrote:

Hi All
    I may be being a bit dim, but...

I want to hang a small (128GB) SATA SSD onto a Windows laptop via USB,
for backup purposes. I use Linux much more than Windows these days FWIW.

I have a USB-C SATA enclosure and can put the SSD drive in that.
Initially I connected this to my Linux desktop machine and formatted it
as NTFS - worked fine.

However when I connect this to the windows (W10) laptop, no drive seems
to be seen. Neither Device Manager nor "Drive Management" seem to have knowledge of it.

So I took a step back and wiped the drive in case I'd done something
wrong with partition types or filesystems etc. Still nothing. The laptop
is powered and I have tried both directly and via a powered dock. It's a Thinkpad BTW.

Oddly, the laptop does emit a notification 'ping' when I connect or disconnect the cable. I have tried with different (new-ish) USB-C cables.

Am I missing something here? I should be able to simply plug this drive
in via one of these SATA to USB-C adapters, have it recognised, and
format it, shouldn't I?

Thanks in advance
    J^n

Sometimes ... Computer Manager seems to like you to re-start the
machine before it will recognise a new disk - regardless of any pinging
noises - or your multiple presses of the "Re-Scan Disks" button

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jkn: why can't you backup to another computer via a  LAN/WLAN? If you
are scrapping the device anyway.

And surely theres more than one USB port on the thing ?

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jkn wrote:

the laptop does emit a notification 'ping' when I connect or disconnect
the cable.

if you're getting the PnP bing-bong, it should at least show up under
device manager, o not the look in event viewer for disastrous disk errors.

whether it shows in disk management is more related to whether windows
likes the look of the partition table and file system thsat linux wrote
to the disk ...

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

jkn <jkn+es@nicorp.co.uk> wrote:

Hi Theo
Yes I tried this sort of thing, with a Knoppix pendrive, but ran
into different problems:

- The BIOS is seeing all the drives I plugged in - SSD or Flash pendrives
- I had a bit of trouble setting the drive to boot from...
- I then started to get Bitlocker errors ... this may have been a red herring, but I realised that if the drive I want to backup is encrypted
with bitlocker (it is, I think) then then Knoppix would not be able to sensibly read it, I think.

Did Knoppix successfully read the USB SSD? If yes, you know the SSD is ok
on this hardware and Windows is the problem. If no you know the problem is
the laptop or the SSD. Since the SSD is readable on the other machine it suggests it's the laptop not the SSD. We're not trying to do a backup here, we're just trying to eliminate causes of the problem.

Since the BIOS can see it that points towards Windows, but there's a
difference between detecting the drive and actually using it to transfer
data.

If the USB is encrypted you still should be able to view its partition
tables etc which tells you that it's mostly alive. A
'dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/null bs=1M'
is a quick hack to confirm you can read all the data on drive /dev/sdX -
you'd expect errors if there was some problem with the drive.

I am not very familiar with eg. mounting a remove Linux drive on a
windows machine, but I think I have been able to get where I want to
using Seafile (as an alternative to Nextcloud)

If the Linux machine is running Samba you should be able to mount it like
any other Windows drive. You'd likely have to configure Samba at the Linux end, but there are many tutorials for that.

I don't know Seafile, but Syncthing is another cross-platform sync tool -
syncs between various machines similar to a 'cloud' storage service, but without needing a cloud server.

Theo

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On 4/3/25 11:00, Theo wrote:

jkn <jkn+es@nicorp.co.uk> wrote:

Hi Theo
Yes I tried this sort of thing, with a Knoppix pendrive, but ran
into different problems:

- The BIOS is seeing all the drives I plugged in - SSD or Flash pendrives
- I had a bit of trouble setting the drive to boot from...
- I then started to get Bitlocker errors ... this may have been a red
herring, but I realised that if the drive I want to backup is encrypted
with bitlocker (it is, I think) then then Knoppix would not be able to
sensibly read it, I think.

Did Knoppix successfully read the USB SSD? If yes, you know the SSD is ok
on this hardware and Windows is the problem. If no you know the problem is the laptop or the SSD. Since the SSD is readable on the other machine it suggests it's the laptop not the SSD. We're not trying to do a backup here, we're just trying to eliminate causes of the problem.

Since the BIOS can see it that points towards Windows, but there's a difference between detecting the drive and actually using it to transfer data.

If the USB is encrypted you still should be able to view its partition
tables etc which tells you that it's mostly alive. A
'dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/null bs=1M'
is a quick hack to confirm you can read all the data on drive /dev/sdX - you'd expect errors if there was some problem with the drive.

I am not very familiar with eg. mounting a remove Linux drive on a
windows machine, but I think I have been able to get where I want to
using Seafile (as an alternative to Nextcloud)

If the Linux machine is running Samba you should be able to mount it like
any other Windows drive. You'd likely have to configure Samba at the Linux end, but there are many tutorials for that.

I don't know Seafile, but Syncthing is another cross-platform sync tool - syncs between various machines similar to a 'cloud' storage service, but without needing a cloud server.

Theo

I wouldn't use Syncthing to transfer valuable files, not as a one-off.
It is a little tricky to configure and can lead to files getting deleted accidentally.

I do use Syncthing (mainly for transferring data to/from mobile
devices), but I have messed it up a number of times, most recently a
couple of days ago. A folder was set to send only, and I then clicked
when it said it was out of sync. Yes, I know I'm a F-wit, but experience
tells me other people are too.

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Pancho <Pancho.Jones@protonmail.com> wrote:

I wouldn't use Syncthing to transfer valuable files, not as a one-off.
It is a little tricky to configure and can lead to files getting deleted accidentally.

I do use Syncthing (mainly for transferring data to/from mobile
devices), but I have messed it up a number of times, most recently a
couple of days ago. A folder was set to send only, and I then clicked
when it said it was out of sync. Yes, I know I'm a F-wit, but experience tells me other people are too.

Thanks, that's good to know. Not noticed it happening on my setup, but I
shall pay more close attention in future...

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 03/04/2025 11:00, Theo wrote:

jkn <jkn+es@nicorp.co.uk> wrote:

Hi Theo
Yes I tried this sort of thing, with a Knoppix pendrive, but ran
into different problems:

- The BIOS is seeing all the drives I plugged in - SSD or Flash pendrives
- I had a bit of trouble setting the drive to boot from...
- I then started to get Bitlocker errors ... this may have been a red
herring, but I realised that if the drive I want to backup is encrypted
with bitlocker (it is, I think) then then Knoppix would not be able to
sensibly read it, I think.

Did Knoppix successfully read the USB SSD? If yes, you know the SSD is ok
on this hardware and Windows is the problem. If no you know the problem is the laptop or the SSD. Since the SSD is readable on the other machine it suggests it's the laptop not the SSD. We're not trying to do a backup here, we're just trying to eliminate causes of the problem.

Since the BIOS can see it that points towards Windows, but there's a difference between detecting the drive and actually using it to transfer data.

If the USB is encrypted you still should be able to view its partition
tables etc which tells you that it's mostly alive. A
'dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/null bs=1M'
is a quick hack to confirm you can read all the data on drive /dev/sdX - you'd expect errors if there was some problem with the drive.

I am not very familiar with eg. mounting a remove Linux drive on a
windows machine, but I think I have been able to get where I want to
using Seafile (as an alternative to Nextcloud)

If the Linux machine is running Samba you should be able to mount it like
any other Windows drive. You'd likely have to configure Samba at the Linux end, but there are many tutorials for that.

I don't know Seafile, but Syncthing is another cross-platform sync tool - syncs between various machines similar to a 'cloud' storage service, but without needing a cloud server.

Theo

Hi Theo
I hit the bitlocker issue before being able to boot to Knoppix. I don't have much knowledge about bitlocker; I was unsure whether it was part of
its behaviour to prevent the very thing I was trying, and that you suggest.

Yes, as you say, if I wconcert ukuleleere to boot to knoppix I could
look at the partition table and perform basic checks on the SSD (That is
not particularly suspect; the DRAM is). But I would not be able to copy
the files off, which is what I was trying.

I might retry just to boot to Knoppix to see if I was unlucky, and for S&Gs.

Thanks for the mention of Syncthing. At one point I was considering
using rsync, but was having issues installing it on the windows machine
(again, perhaps related to the DRAM problem). I think I have managed
with Seafile, which I also use for 'cloud-like' storage, but just on my
local home network. FWIW it works a lot better than Nextcloud seems to
these days.

J^n

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jkn wrote:

if I wconcert ukuleleere to boot to knoppix

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
that's one special cat you've got there, get it on UK's got talent :-)

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On 03/04/2025 19:16, Andy Burns wrote:

jkn wrote:

if I wconcert ukuleleere to boot to knoppix

        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
that's one special cat you've got there, get it on UK's got talent :-)

haha! I wondered where that clipboard entry went to! ;-)

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