I'm wondering just how the sdb drive was copied. Exactly what command was used.

A missing partition table is likely, based on what I see from the lsblk -f command.

Just how much music data is on sdb, if it were wiped, re-partitioned, and formatted, would it be possible to have the data copied again? Just some thoughts, it is up to Nuuk to let us know.

The absence of a partition table is not a major problem. While the convention is to have a partition table and partitions there is no absolute requirement, it just makes the disk more organized.

If the filesystem is ok it should just mount using /dev/sdb. I would of expected the output of lsblk -f to look like.

I don't know why blkid shows the correct? information but lsblk does not but there is the possibility of a filesystem error due to the standard message.

Wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb, missing code page or help program or other error.

I'm with camorri that we need to know how the file were copied / cloned etc to the hard drive.

I would expect some software, such as backup/restore programs to get very upset about the missing partition table.

I would say that sdb contains no valid filesystem. But OP should know if there was anything on it already.

The drive was copied using Redo

https://www.tecmint.com/redo-backup-...linux-systems/

It made an exact copy of the music drive on my other music computer although that one uses Audiophile Linux v3.0 (with Arch instead of Mint). I didn't think that that would make any difference to the drive storing the music.

The music drive has about 289 gb on it so would take a while to copy the music back on to, but if that is necessary, I will have to do it.

But, is it possible to create a partition on the drive using something like gparted without losing the data?

I would say that is in a special format, cannot be accessed without that software.
According to the documentation it is based on partclone, so it can be used to retrieve some data. Somehow. Not an easy task.

I accept that is likely my problem. It is just odd that the drive/file system mounts fine manually.

would be nice to explain it better. I don't really understand what do you mean by that.

If I open the Computer folder on the desktop, and right click on the drive that holds the music, I have the option to mount the drive, and when I click on that option, the drive mounts, and I can access the music on it. But of course, it is only mounted for that session.

So despite it not having a partition, it will mount using that method.

Thanks Jeremy. I didn't do anything to create the partition and partition table on the USB stick. It just came up automatically.

I see. That makes sense. Probably you can right-click on it and check the properties. Need to know how it was mounted. probably a simple mount command may help too (when it is in use).

OK but I will have to re-edit fstab because it does not show up in the 'Computer' directory since I added the line to mount it at boot up. Or to put it another way, after I try to mount it using the terminal, it no longer shows up in the 'Computer' directory.

just comment out the line by adding a # at the beginning.

UPDATE.

I formatted the drive (using the Disk tools in Redo), and created a partition sdb1.

I then removed the Redo USB drive, and booted into Mint. I could see the drive on the desktop (it said 500gb filesystem), and inside that directory was a 'lost&found'.

I then tried to copy some music to that directory but couldn't because I don't have any permissions.

I then edited fstab with the new UUID, went to the terminal, and typed in mount -a. And I got the same error message that I had yesterday, ie "Wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb1, missing code page or help program or other error." (except that sdb is now sdb1.

I can't see where or how to use CHOWN to give myself permissions. I tried usingbut it told me that there was no such file or folder.

you missed a space after nick