2 x 2Tb WD hdd's and powered USB hub + Rpi - can only see one hdd?

  • Hey there everyone, I hope someone might be able the shed some light for me.

    I have 2 x 2Tb Western Digital hdd connected through a powered USB hub (the powered hub as 3 x USB 3 and 4 x USB 2) and the hub it plugged into a Raspberry Pi 2B - this is the same setup that I had when using OSMC and I never had an issue 'finding the drives' to add TV shows and Movies (one drive contains the TV Shows, and the other Movies).

    Ive installed LibreELEC from scratch and it works fine, added the hdd's to the hub and it seems that only the first hdd plugged in can be found, and only if I search in the "root" storage. I have added the movie hdd, pointed it to the movies, scraped using the movie scraper, everything seems to have worked out perfectly... added the TV Shows hdd, and it doesnt show up.

    Am I missing something?

    • I tried the hdd's in the USB3 and the USB2 - same issue
    • Plug the TV Shows drive and can be found, add Movies drive and wont show.
    • Plug in the Movies drive and can be found, add TV Shows drive and wont show.
    • Tried the 2 x drives at the same time with a reboot, same issue.


    Does anyone have any ideas?

    Will Kodi only look for one hdd? Is there a way to manually add 2 USB drives in some way via the USB hub (I have no intention to remove them and if I do they will end up going back into their own port)?

    Thanks! Rich.

  • Can you boot your Pi with no drives connected, then plug in your movies drive (which presumably will be mounted) to the hub, wait 30 seconds, then (still with your movies drive connected) plug in your TV shows drive to the hub.

    Wait another 30 seconds then run the following command, and paste the links:

    Code
    dmesg | pastebinit
    journalctl | pastebinit


    Thanks.

  • Ok so... following the instructions (movies, then TV shows), and issuing the commands requested.

    • dmesg | pastebinit -- KdBT
    • journalctl | pastebinit -- OYQh


    Also find attached a copy of the screenshot of the STORAGE screen from my Rpi2 LibreELEC. When mounting the first drive, the message comes up on the home screen, it does so again with the second drive, but it seems to see the second drive as identical to the first drive?

    For the record they are the exact same model and size drives - both are WD 2Tb Elements drives.

    Thanks, Rich
    [hr]
    I have been doing a little research into the hub I have - Targus ACH120AU (3 x USB3 & 4 x USB2)

    Seems some of the Targus units have troubles and clash with wifi and other usb dongles. The wifi usb dongle Im using, as well as the 2.4Ghz mini keyboard work fine with or without it; removing them and only have the hub in doesnt make a difference either, and as I said before the last setup was the same only using OSMC.

    Apparently the ACH115 does not work with Rpi but the ACH120 was an update with a better quality hub chipset.

    Unfortunately, I dont have another hub to test with.

    The USB hdd's are plugged into the USB2 ports only.

    I hope we can work this out because this was an expensive hub and it is top knotch too.

    Anyways, R

  • The problem is that the file system label, "Elements", is the same on both drives so they're both being mounted from the same mount point, /media/Elements. Consequently only the first disk is mounted correctly. The second disk fails to mount correctly because the mount point is already in use.

    Solution is to change the file system label on one of the drives. Connect it to a Windows machine and change the label, ie. "Movies". Then both drives should mount correctly, one from /media/Movies and the other from /media/Elements.

    Edited once, last by milhouse (July 24, 2016 at 10:51 AM).


  • Solution is to change the file system label on one of the drives. Connect it to a Windows machine and change the label, ie. "Movies". Then both drives should mount correctly, one from /media/Movies and the other from /media/Elements.

    Thanks Milhouse,

    I shall play around with this tomorrow and report back, I didnt even think of that.

    R

  • ***SOLVED***

    Following the recommendations from Milhouse, it seemed to be the very same issue even after renaming the HDDs. So I did a complete, back to SD card, reset and tried again, same issue.

    Contacted Western Digital this morning and was asked if I had purchased the HDDs at the same shop or at the same time, answered yes. Seems this can be an issue even for Windows machines and is EXTREMELY RARE (Im told) - the HDDs not only had the same name but the same internal controller serial numbers on the drives. They provided a software program to run on one of the drives and they work fine now.

    Change of internal serial (RARE!)
    Change of name (Dont know why I didnt think of that myself!)

    And the problem is solved!

    THANKS for all the help!

  • Glad you got it sorted. I once worked at a firm that deployed 200 Compaq PCs which then experienced strange and intermittent network problems. Eventually we discovered that Compaq had programmed all 200 network interface adapters with the same identical MAC. Fortunately we were able to reprogram them all but that was a PITA... Maybe the same clown that programmed those network adapters is now working at WD! :)