How can a disk drive cause Manjaro to freeze

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1

I have got 2 PCs - I call them PCA and PCJ - with the same Manjaro xfce installed, both received the most recent SW update on 2025-12-04. I have also got an external hard disk drive, which caused problems - see

On Dec 3 I solved that problem according to @olli’s advice, i.e. sudo cp /dev/urandom /dev/sda and so on.

After that the external disk behaved correctly. I made a data backup of selected PCA data with the duplicity command. I disconnected the disk and shut the system down. I could also plug the disk into PCJ, look at the data, create a file and a folder, disconnect the drive, shut down PCJ.

On 2025-12-08, I wanted to run an incremental backup (with duplicity) on PCA. I booted PCA, plugged in the disk. The I saw an endless wait of the connection operation. Thunar was unable to connect with the drive. It was also impossible to disconnect the drive. In that state Manjaro refused to shutdown due to an “outstanding operation”; I had to shut down with sysreq-r-e-i-s-u-o
/ [HowTo] reboot / turn off your frozen computer: REISUB/REISUO /

Next I plugged the disk into PCJ. I was able to connect the drive in thunar, look at the data, close the drive, shutdown PCJ.

I plugged the drive into PCA again; no change of behaviour, i.e. disk can be neither connected nor disconnected; operation outstanding, ordinary shutdown refused.

I plugged the drive into PCJ again. Now I se on PCJ the same behaviour as on PCA! It appears as if the disk has transported the Manjaro error from PCA to PCJ.

PCJ is a multiboot system and Ubuntu is one of the bootable systems. So I started Ubuntu. With Ubuntu the disk behaved normally. After disconnecting it I rebooted Manjaro on PCJ and the disk behaved normally with Manjaro.

I booted Manjaro on PCA and plugged in the disk. Manjaro was unable to connect the disk, unable to disconnect, refused to shutdown normally.

Of course I can by a new disk, however,
(1) I do not want to believe that the drive has a defect, because it works with Ubuntu and
(2) the challenge is to explain that strange and undesirable Manjaro behaviour.

2

It might be an idea to run blkid (in Ubuntu, you probably won’t need sudo for this. I don’t on Mint). That way we can see how it’s been formatted.

If it has any ntfs partitions, those could possibly be to blame if corrupted.

3

Like BG405 said, the ntfs module handles certain things badly. (A chkdsk may need to be run from Windows.) Maybe Ubuntu is dealing with this a little more elegantly. Who knows, we don’t have the information.

What’s the layout?

From Your favourite *fdisk utility, or just the drive in question from:

sudo parted -l

What are the logs?

When you plug it in, then unmount cleanly or eject?

You can monitor the logs with:

journalctl -f
# (Use --no-pager for copy/pasting)
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4

How can a disk drive cause Manjaro to freeze?

If the internal structures of the chosen file system get corrupted - the disk will exhibit similar behaviour to what you describe.

You should ensure the systems cache has been flushed to disk before removing a storage device to avoid corrupting the file system - the sync command does exactly that.

I suggest you check if your system has the package udev-usb-sync installed.

The package serves the function of fine tuning buffers and write cache, to avoid file system corruption on removable devices when cache has not yet been fully synced. See → [INFO] New package - udev-usb-sync for more info.

5

That’s… not what @BG405 said, at all…

Though, I agree that NTFS filesystems should be checked from time to time, using chkdsk (the only reliable tool for repairing an NTFS filesystem). Unfortunately, a Windows environment is required.

The following is for anyone interested in a “deep dive” into potential problems faced with NTFS; you may need some time to absorb it:

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