Ubuntu – Can’t mount an IDE HDD – “can’t read superblock” error message

I have fixed the issue that I was having with this after the superblock became damaged/corrupted from a system freeze and subsequent improper power off while the volume was mounted.

Basically, you aren't able to mount the volume however using Veracrypt you can click the options button in the gui to map the volume but not mount it. (the terminology may be incorrect, I am a novice.) On the filesystem options at the bottom, tick the box marked "Do not mount".

After doing so, you will see your volume on the veracrypt GUI as usual, however the mount directory section will be empty. The result should be that the partition is accessible via /dev/mapper/veracrypt#

Now we must discover which superblock backups are available within the partition.

Open a terminal and type

sudo mke2fs -n <device>

now using the information it displays,

sudo e2fsck -b  <one of the displayed options> <device>

After this you should have a working volume if your problem was the same as mine, however from here our experiences will likely diverge.

My e2fsck terminal went crazy flooding it with a mess of numbers, I don't know precisely what happened. At the end it asked if I would like to fix it, however it then said the filesystem had been changed and it was canceling its operations, however regardless the volume now mounts properly and I am able to use it without consequence.

Even though it failed this is how I discovered it was working, in a terminal I typed

sudo mount -t ext4 /dev/mapper/veracrypt# /media/veracrypt1

To my delight, it worked. I then unmounted and remounted via the Veracrypt GUI with a working result.

Best of luck. Once you understand how to access the volume without mounting it you will be able to try other options that you would typically try on a damaged partition and so will have more possible solutions to try. (Personally I had no idea I could use /dev/mapper/veracrypt# to treat it as a typical partition until a lot of troubleshooting)

*my source for the procedure I used and other possible solutions were found here https://www.quora.com/What-are-all-the-things-one-can-try-to-recover-an-ext3-filesystem-with-a-bad-superblock *