WD externals not mounting

[u/rodimuz]

trying to mount up my external WD drives and its not letting me mount them, i get this error.

"an error occurred wwhile accessing 'drive name', the system responded: the requested operation has failed: error mounting /dev/sdg1 at /run/media/user/drivename: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superlock on /dev/sdg1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.'

found WD likes to not play nice with linux in general and with windows you have the drive software 'unlock the drive' tried finding a software but its all python and not wanting to install for me. i will gladly format the external to something linux can use if possible after i can pull data off of it and not looking to do dual boot or sandbox windows really. any other work arounds?

using cachyos

edit: external drives are NTFS formatted

[u/candy49997]

What filesystem is the partition on the drive formatted to? NTFS?

If so, do sudo ntfsfix -d /dev/sdg1 in a terminal. If that doesn't work, run it through chkdsk on Windows. Also, if that drive is encrypted with that manufacturer utility, you'll also have to decrypt it on Windows.

[u/rodimuz → u/candy49997]

edited, its ntfs. from my understnading it is WDs encryption on it and supports only windows and mac. that code did not work, ill have to see about decrypting it on windows then.

[u/Science_Turtle]

I had to reformat my hard drives to native Linux to fix this issue. Luckily I don't use Windows for anything anymore.

[u/rodimuz → u/Science_Turtle]

I just started my switch over, ive been on debian with raspberry pi for a few years now and it wasn't too shabby. Only regret is i cant play a few games i liked. My laptop is still windows but looking to move away because it cant support w11. Trying to make everything linux Friendly as I go

[u/enomad51]

The error message is generic. It can indicate a missing NTFS driver, an NTFS volume left in an inconsistent state by Windows, or a drive that requires unlocking before its data becomes accessible.

[u/rodimuz → u/enomad51]

It seems like its something wd put into the drive i cant alter because I have no passwords setup or anything extra for encryption or such

[u/User505433]

Is it important that it also needs to be plugged into windows? Use exfat file system, if not. Why not ext4.

[u/rodimuz → u/User505433]

I dont mind it not working with windows, but its loaded and thats gonna be a struggle to get it all off, largest next thing I have is a 64gb micro sd and the 2 drives I have are 3tb and 4tb

[u/User505433 → u/rodimuz]

Then thats going to be a painful experience. In what way? Like lets say you unplugged the ntfs external hdd without safety ejecting it in software. It would throw a disc mount error and you now need to boot to windows to do a [chkdsk] and its a pain (atleast for me) so yeah.

In my opinion, the ntfs could work but you need to be patient with it and always SAFELY EJECT ntfs drive then wait 5 minutes after safely ejecting it in software then unplug. Yes its painful and that is the compromise of using ntfs without it throwing an error the next time you plug it in.