How to automatically mount a 4GB Transcend miniSDHC card + show in GNOME File Browser

bgoodr · 07-25-2008, 09:59 PM

Hi,

When I insert an SD card into my USB 2.0 card reader, I expect something in Linux to detect that card, automatically mount it, and update the GNOME File Browser so that it shows some sort of drive. This works on my Debian Lenny x86_64 system today on my 2GB SD card, but does not work on a newly purchased 4GB Transcend miniSDHC card (Class 4). Linux does seem to recognize that there is a new "drive", but does not automatically mount it, nor does the GNOME File Browser show a drive in its "Computer" directory entry. I am able to manually mount it from root, save files to it, and umount it without any apparent errors in /var/log/messages.

When things work correctly for the 2GB SD card, I see "SD/MMC Drive: 1.9 GB Removable Volume" in the File Browser under the Computer "directory".

Is there some special thing I must do to get the miniSDHC card to be automatically mounted and the GNOME File Browser updated?

The two cards are formatted differently. The fdisk -l output for the 2GB SD card reads:

Code:

Disk /dev/sdc: 2032 MB, 2032664576 bytes
64 heads, 63 sectors/track, 984 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 4032 * 512 = 2064384 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1               1         984     1983619+   6  FAT16

The fdisk -l output for the 4GB miniSDHC card reads:

Code:

Disk /dev/sdc: 4000 MB, 4000317440 bytes
114 heads, 49 sectors/track, 1398 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 5586 * 512 = 2860032 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1               1        1399     3906528+   b  W95 FAT32

Note that the /dev device is identical in name between the two cards.

Is this a GNOME issue, or some lower level issue?

FYI:

GNOME File Browser version: Nautilus 2.20.0
GNOME version: 2.22.3
Transcend 4GB miniSDHC card:

Transcend 4GB Mini SDHC Flash Card Model TS4GSDMHC4
SanDisk 2GB SD card
Card reader: Hummingbird All-in-one + 3 USB 2.0 ports (Hub)

Thanks
Brent

storkus · 07-26-2008, 02:53 AM

I've got a couple of ideas that could be the issue, but you'll have to investigate for yourself as these are just guesses:

1. Mess with fstab (look at how it sees it now and change it to look for something general of its looking for something specific) or mess with the config of whatever program is doing the automounting, assuming it isn't exclusively looking at fstab.

2. Since it's the same card reader, the udev and hotplug systems may or may not be a problem. I've had problems with these in the past, in particular the way they cache new items in relation to older ones. Messing with these may take a while, mostly in reading docs since this is one system that normally "just works" and you never really need to screw around with.

3. I doubt it, but something in the SD drivers. But this is definitely "last resort".

Let me know what you find.

Mike

bgoodr · 07-26-2008, 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by storkus

I've got a couple of ideas that could be the issue ...
Let me know what you find.
Mike

Thanks Mike. Well, /etc/fstab doesn't show anything there that seems specific to USB or cards, etc:

Code:

hungover:/etc# cat fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
/dev/sda1       /               ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro 0       1
/dev/sda5       none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/scd0       /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0

So, I am thinking that the problem is even lower level than that. Perhaps there is some type info on each type of card that is presented onto the USB bus that Linux needs to detect and translate into a "I can mount this properly" type of operation? Is there some type of configuration file that shows the list of SD cards that are recognized? Perhaps this particular card has some vendor string or something that I need to add manually?

Thanks for your help!
Brent

bgoodr · 07-26-2008, 08:58 PM

Note also that I had to end up manually mounting it, with this line in my /etc/fstab file:

Code:

# I added this to get the miniSDHC card to mount properly with user permissions:
/dev/sdc1       /media/sdcard   vfat   rw,nosuid,nodev,user,noauto     0       0

This way, at least I could be a non-root user and still mount it and then copy files to it without permissions problems. But my complaint is that it is not automatic.

Brent