Question Will the Seagate BarraCuda 2TB work with with Linux Mint?

[parsimonius]

The HDD on my HTPC seems to have died AFAICT. Neither BIOS nor a bootable USB drive see the hard drive -WD black 1TB hard disk drive WD1003FZEX .

So now, I am deciding whether to replace the HD or junk the HTPC and replace it with something like a Raspberry Pi 5. My HTPC has an ASUS B150M-A/M.2 mobo, Intel i3-6100 CPU and 2 4GB DDR4-2133 Corsair CMV4GX4M1A2133C15 RAM. I built it around Oct 2016. It works for the most part but has started giving problems. The screen display would freeze and the audio endlessly loop; I had to use the pc reset button to force a shut down and reboot. At first thought the problem was mobo related but given what happened with the HDD I'm not sure now.

A replacement HDD that caught my eye becuase it is in my price range is Seagate BarraCuda 2TB Internal Hard Drive HDD (ST2000DM008/ST2000DMZ08)

I'll install either MINT Cinnamon or Windows 10 Pro as my O/S. I was using MINT at the time the drive died, but do not feel tied to it. I use the HTPC to surf the net, watch YouTube and play internet radio in the background (VLC). I have some ripped audio CDs that I might store on the HTPC also.

My questions are - could the HDD failure have caused the problem I saw re: freeze and audio looping? will the Seagate HDD work out of the box with Linux MINT Cinnamon?

Thanks.

 

[Moonstick2]

I don't see any advantage getting a Pi as a replacement in your situation, and I say that as somebody with a Pi4 and Pi5.

It's feasible that it was the HDD that caused the issues, but no way that anybody can tell for sure. Have you been able to verify that the old HDD can't be recognised by anything else?

As to the main question, yes the HDD will work out of the box with Linux. Linux works will most file systems these days, including NTFS. When you install Linux you'll have the option to format the drive into whatever file system anyway, and ext4 is probably recommended.

 

[parsimonius]

I don't see any advantage getting a Pi as a replacement in your situation, and I say that as somebody with a Pi4 and Pi5.

It's feasible that it was the HDD that caused the issues, but no way that anybody can tell for sure. Have you been able to verify that the old HDD can't be recognised by anything else?

As to the main question, yes the HDD will work out of the box with Linux. Linux works will most file systems these days, including NTFS. When you install Linux you'll have the option to format the drive into whatever file system anyway, and ext4 is probably recommended.

Thanks for the info. As to your question about my HDD, I don't own dedicated eqpt to test it and I'm a layman so don't know if there are other procedures to try. The idea about using a Linux Mint bootable USB to see if I could access the HDD was only because the HDD was recognized when I originally installed Mint on the HTPC using a bootable USB drive a year or two ago.

 

[Grobe]

could the HDD failure have caused the problem I saw re: freeze and audio looping?

Yes. Most of the current OS'es does not handle communication breaks to the main storage devices in a way that the user can do any meaningful tasks. It's like a house with no wall or bone structure, or plane without wings - it can never work.

will the Seagate HDD work out of the box with Linux MINT Cinnamon?

Any HDD on the consumer marked should work. It's the hdd controller that may be an issue - unless you're dealing with some raid controllers this should not be an issue.

 

[parsimonius]

It's been a bit since I got everyone's comments. I just wanted to give an update. I bought the HDD I asked about. I swapped it out, did a new install of Mint Cinnamon. There were a few hiccups to start during installation, but I'm now back up and running the HTPC.

Before I trash the old HDD, I'm wondering if there is a simple procedure to double check that it is really dead. Now that I don't feel pressured to get everything "fixed", my curiosity is rising,

For example, I know that there are external cases made for SATA HDDs. Would getting something like that make sense to test the HDD in question? Or does anyone manufacture a cable to temporarily connect a SATA HDD including power to test if a HDD works? And would doing so even make sense? Of course, any of these ideas may just be a pipedream since I don't know how professionals do their testing, and I'm really just looking at it from a layman's perspective who doesn't want to go seriously overboard for something that is actually a dead horse now (pun intended).

Regardless, thanks to all.

 

[Grobe]

Before I trash the old HDD, I'm wondering if there is a simple procedure to double check that it is really dead. Now that I don't feel pressured to get everything "fixed", my curiosity is rising,

It probably are, and you certainly wouldn't let important files being stored on that drive. It's trash, simply as that.

However - if you don't mind the OS goes total freeze from time to time, you can test if the old hdd can still actually be of any use for scrap/temporary/downloads/swap file. Do this:

• Create a bootable usb from a Linux distro of your choice (assume Mint).
• Connect the old HDD as a secondary drive (optionally disconnect the new hdd).
• In bios - Make sure you can boot from usb device
• BOOT LINUX LIVE DESKTOP
  • Open Gnome Disks (normally the program shortcut is only named "Disks")
  • Have a look at s.m.a.r.t. values
  • Perform a benchmark test and see if results look good (good idea to save a screenshot and upload a copy here - both from s.m.a.r.t values and also benchmark results)

Be aware: Even if the s.m.a.r.t. values seems good, don't trust that. Always assume that this disk being soon to die.

If the disk seems good, you can use it for the following purposes (will cause OS freeze if/when the hdd fails next time):

• Swap partition. You want to put this partition at the beginning of the disk because you need max performance.
• Re-locate Target folder for web browser profile folder (or any software that create disk intensify operations that you can effort to loss - given you make backup from time to time).
• Browser or torrent download location. You probably would put this at the end of the disk, Xfs is a good choice when partition is mainly populated by big files.

Do not:

• attempt to re-locate /var after os install. I tried doing that with mx Linux (3 yrs back), and when I wasn't able to start the desktop and figure how to fix (I probably messed it up with file/folders permissions back then) I re-installed the OS to make it usable again.
• Assume that also apply for /tmp location
• put or re-locate very important files to the old hdd.