Usb hard drive not accessable in my general use qube

[draylath]

Hi there everyone. Me again with another question/begging for help lol

I am having difficulty getting my usb external hard drive to work with my general use qube (or any other actually).

I plug it in and it shows up in the widget on the top bar. I attach it to the qube that I want and it gives me the messages that it’s now attached. I go to the files of my chosen qube to access the drive but it’s not there.

One odd thing about this is that the first time I tried to use it it worked just fine and I was able to use the drive but every time since I’ve had no luck.

Specific Info:
I’m using the debian 11 qube to try to access the drive
I was not given the option to create a sys-usb during the system install (I have read that this might have something to do with it, possibly because I’m using a usb keyboard and mouse)
I’ve tried to create a sys-usb qube following the official documentation on the website and this failed with a: Dom0 configuration failed, not continuing (this was from running the first command on the site)

Thanks in advance for any help

[apparatus]

If a block device isn’t automatically mounted after attaching you need to mount it manually:

How to use block storage devices

I don’t remember it ever automatically mounting for me using default Qubes OS templates without some custom configuration that would enable automatic mounting.

@draylath

I’ve tried to create a sys-usb qube following the official documentation on the website and this failed with a: Dom0 configuration failed, not continuing (this was from running the first command on the site)

Did you try this command:

sudo qubesctl state.sls qvm.usb-keyboard

From this guide?

USB qubes

[draylath]

@apparatus

If a block device isn’t automatically mounted after attaching you need to mount it manually:

For some reason just after I sent my post I noticed it had appeared and is working fine now. Perhaps I need to be patient and let it settle down?

@apparatus

Did you try this command:

sudo qubesctl state.sls qvm.usb-keyboard

From this guide?

Yes that was the one. It wasnt having it

[apparatus]

@draylath

Yes that was the one. It wasnt having it

Maybe you opted to use sys-net for both networking and usb during Qubes OS install?

Error creating sys-usb

When installing Qubes I opted to use sys-net for both networking and usb. I now want to create a dedicated sys-usb but when I run sudo qubesctl state.sls qvm.sys-usb in dom0 I get an error. The sys-net state is entirely in red and says: ID: sys-net-usb Function: qvm.prefs Name: sys-net Result: False Comment: The following requisites were not found: require: sl…

[draylath]

Yes! Now I’ve looked into it a bit more I can see that all my usb devices have a sys-net tag on them in the widget. I assume this isn’t the best way of doing it? It was set up for me by the installer like this.

I’ll read that threat you’ve linked and go from there. Many thanks

[apparatus]

@draylath

I assume this isn’t the best way of doing it?

Use sys-net qube for both networking and USB devices: You should select this option if you rely on a USB device for network access, such as a USB modem or a USB Wi-Fi adapter.

Installation guide