Unable to view physical HDD in Gparted

[Zana]

Hi,

Not sure if it is even possible. I have a big hard drive mounted to a docking station and have access to it through Debian. Meaning I have access to it via root in the terminal. However, Gparted is unable to detect it. So right now I have an empty physical HDD that I want to format via Gparted. Because I tried it with MiniTools but although it says in the Partition wizard that it is Ext4, it is actually Ext3.

I read somewhere that only professional would format the disk via VirtualBox, but is it even possible?

I am new to Linux:)!

[mpack]

You are rather vague on what "mounted" means. If you mean mounted as a shared folder then it's actually a piece of software (similar to FTP), not a disk, and gparted won't see it as a disk.

If you are talking direct access via USB then it isn't a VirtualBox problem. You should ask on some gparted forum what their software doesn't do as you expect.

[Zana]

Haha ok., as mentioned new to computering. But I enjoy it a lot. In my work environment we say mount the disk to the docking station.
So the HDD is accessible via USB connected to the docking station. I can see it in my computer folder in windows. I can also see it via VirtualBox in Debian in media folder. But cannot open it due to permission rights, but I can view the contents in the terminal.

Anyways, thanks for the help I will ask the Gparted forum:)

[mpack]

To clarify: just because the host PC uses USB to connect to the external drive does not mean that the guest sees it that way. It still isn't clear to me how you connected this drive to the VM, it still sounds like you set up a shared folder, in which case my first comment above applies.

[Zana]

Hi mpack,

Its like you stated above, mounted as shared folder. So it only sees it as a sofware then? And it is not possible to format the disk via Gparted.

[mpack]

Yes exactly. A shared folder is not a disk drive, it's just presented like one if you browse into it.