Second SSD not appearing on Manjaro KDE

I have recently been given a second SSD to use for extra storage. I understand that you can use a second SSD to store data and freely transfer files between it and your main SSD. However, on my machine I cannot see the second storage device, even though the manjaro installer recognizes it and the device is listed in BIOS. How do I set it up so as to see and use the device with my PC?

Hi @HekTvT, and welcome!

It sounds like the SSD doesn’t yet have a primary/active partition, from what I pick up quickly. Please post the output of:

inxi -Fazy

And

sudo fdisk -l

What is the SSD size/capacity?

Regards,

Thanks.

The output of inxi -Fazy lists all my parts. Under “Drives” it lists my storage as 894 GiB (which should be accurate, both drives are 480GiB. It lists them both.

The output of fdisk -l lists info on the drives specifically.

What info do you need? Also how would I create an active partition?

This was said by @Mirdarthos as clearly as it is possible. Post it if you are aiming for help. :writing_hand:

inxi -Fazy outputs:

Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 894.26 GiB used: 10.24 GiB (1.1%) 
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: A-Data model: SU635 size: 447.13 GiB 
  block size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> 
  rev: 1c89 
  ID-2: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 vendor: A-Data model: SU635 size: 447.13 GiB 
  block size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> 
  rev: 4c18 
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw size: 447.13 GiB size: 439.11 GiB (98.21%) 
  used: 10.24 GiB (2.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1 
Swap:
  Alert: No Swap data was found. 

sudo fdisk -l outputs:

Disk /dev/sda: 447.13 GiB, 480103981056 bytes, 937703088 sectors
Disk model: ADATA SU635     
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x85e1b9b8

Device     Boot Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1        2048 937697984 937695937 447.1G 83 Linux


Disk /dev/sdb: 447.13 GiB, 480103981056 bytes, 937703088 sectors
Disk model: ADATA SU635     
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Thank you @HekTvT.

From the output of sudo fdisk -l it seems I was correct. You’ll have to create the partition for thee SSD. What type of partition will greatly depend on the need for the disk. If you need to access it in windows, you’ll probably need to make it a FAT/FAT32/NTFS partition. If, however, you will only be accessing it in Linux, you’ll could make it many partition types. I personally use ext4.

I’m not 100% sure, and I can’t check right now, but I think, note, think, you can use sudo fdisk /dev/sdb to accomplish this. I’m pretty sure it’ll work for ext4 just not if it works for NTFS / FAT32 / other windows partition types.

Please see

man fdisk

for more help.

@HekTvT your disk /dev/sdb seems not to have a partition table. Your disk /dev/sda is formatted in msdos and carries your Linux system. For a data partition you would be free to select gpt or msdos but if you later-on want to install another system on /dev/sdb then you should better use the same partition scheme for /dev/sdb. Ideally use an extended partition to allow more than 4 partitions.

Details can be found here:
Partitioning - ArchWiki

For a data partition to be used exclusively by Linux ext4 is the simplest fs approach, if you want to access it also by Windoze exFAT might be a good idea, or NTFS of course.


Alternatively, backup and reinstall Linux in UEFI mode with gpt partitioned disk.

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Basically after plugging an SSD in with power and a sata cable, boot up your desktop and find ‘partition’ in the menu - with KDE it launches KDE partition manager.

After that (with my old SanDisk) select the device on the left, then format it to ext4 and give it a name (Being creative - I put SSD for my Sandisk SDSSDA240G).

Once it’s done, you can sort out how to mount it as a regular storage. I use gnome-disks for a rough and ready (nooby) way to fix mounts (it will write your fstab for you) and then later on I create systemd mounts - but that’s just gravy.