Mounted disks jam "ready"

lectraplayer · 09-25-2005, 08:17 PM

Debian 3.1 Sarge is giving me trouble with my disks, when I mount it, it mounts fine, but it absolutely refuses to unmount it for some reason, always gives me a disk error and leaves it mounted. This is for all my disks, making it agravating for me to have to restart to be able to safely eject a floppy disk, or to get my CD's back. How do I get it so that it will unmount the disks at my will?

Bruce Hill · 09-26-2005, 10:17 AM

It will help immeasurably when you explain how you're mounting and attempting
to unmount which disks in your thread. Something like this would be preferred:

Example of proper post and discernable problem:
I am mounting the Slackware-CD1 and viewing files in a terminal as user like this:

Code:

mingdao@titus:~$ mount /mnt/cdrw
mingdao@titus:~$
mingdao@titus:~$ cd /mnt/cdrw
mingdao@titus:/mnt/cdrw$ ls -alh
total 1.4M
drwxr-xr-x   5 bruce users 4.0K 2005-08-05 13:44 .
drwxr-xr-x   6 root  root   144 2005-09-15 16:04 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 bruce users  19K 2002-04-07 04:51 BOOTING.TXT
-rw-r--r--   1 root  root  370K 2005-08-05 13:44 CHECKSUMS.md5
-rw-r--r--   1 root  root   189 2005-08-05 13:44 CHECKSUMS.md5.asc
-rw-r--r--   1 bruce users  18K 1994-06-10 10:28 COPYING
-rw-r--r--   1 bruce users  15K 2004-02-29 10:32 COPYRIGHT.TXT
-rw-r--r--   1 bruce users  602 2002-04-07 04:48 CRYPTO_NOTICE.TXT
-rw-r--r--   1 bruce users  832 2005-02-14 14:22 CURRENT.WARNING
-rw-r--r--   1 root  root   63K 2005-08-05 13:35 ChangeLog.txt
-rw-r--r--   1 bruce users  32K 2004-06-21 22:38 FAQ.TXT
-rw-r--r--   1 root  root  499K 2005-08-05 13:42 FILELIST.TXT
-rw-r--r--   1 bruce users 1.6K 2003-02-27 07:34 GPG-KEY
-rw-r--r--   1 root  root  239K 2005-08-05 13:38 PACKAGES.TXT
-rw-r--r--   1 bruce users 4.4K 2005-05-13 00:30 README.NPTL
-rw-r--r--   1 bruce users  15K 2002-06-18 06:41 SPEAKUP_DOCS.TXT
-rw-r--r--   1 bruce users  16K 2002-06-18 06:43 SPEAK_INSTALL.TXT
-rw-r--r--   1 bruce users  70K 2005-02-04 11:57 Slackware-HOWTO
-rw-r--r--   1 bruce users 4.3K 2005-02-02 05:48 UPGRADE.TXT
drwxr-xr-x   3 bruce users 2.0K 2005-07-25 05:32 isolinux
drwxr-xr-x  20 bruce users 4.0K 2005-06-06 11:36 kernels
drwxr-xr-x  14 bruce users 4.0K 2005-08-05 13:39 slackware
mingdao@titus:/mnt/cdrw$

and this is the line in my /etc/fstab file for the device:

Code:

/dev/hdc   /mnt/cdrw   iso9660   noauto,users,ro  0   0

However, every time I try to unmount it I get the following error:

Code:

mingdao@titus:/mnt/cdrw$ umount /mnt/cdrw/
umount: /mnt/cdrw: device is busy
umount: /mnt/cdrw: device is busy
mingdao@titus:/mnt/cdrw$

End example of proper post

Until you explain how you're mounting what, and what you did after mounting,
and how you're attempting to unmount them ... we can't give you the answer.

For reference to help you learn how to make better posts, so that you'll get
really good help right away, Great Guidelines From Eric S. Raymond and Rick Moen

lectraplayer · 09-26-2005, 09:57 PM

OK, since I need a lawyer to describe how I'm mounting the disks and everything

, I will go ahead and say it is through all proper methods and procedures, being from hitting X-terminal as root and typing in something like mount /dev/fd0 /media/floppy to mount it and then later umount /dev/fd0, which has always worked before, to mounting it by accessing it in the "devices" section of Konqueror's tree view (right under Home). The umount command does not perform the unmounting as the manufacturer's directions indicate, but instead will give me a "device is busy" error as if I was browsing that folder, but I am completely out of that device. However, I do the same for, say, Linspire or RedHat, and it works all day. This is with a stock /etc/fstab, as made by Debian installation, which includes /dev/fd0 in one of its lines. The same thing happens when I go something like mount /dev/sda0 /media/usb for my SD card reader hanging from my USB port, that also unmounts readily in Linspire and RedHat. I'm really not trying anything new, just an unusual experience from an old procedure. My question is Why does Debian refuse to unmount my disks?!

johnnyspire · 10-23-2005, 03:05 AM

my fstab looks like this:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hdb1 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hdb6 /home ext3 defaults 0 2
/dev/hdb5 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdd /media/cdrom0 iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrecorder iso9660 rw,user,noauto 0

and i'm trying to use Konquerers quick browser's DEVICES page and right click - unmount. It physically will not eject the DVD. The Device cdrecorder was never in my fstab until I added it. It was however in Konquerer as a cdrom that I couldn't access. Adding it to fstab made the disk readable.

Also - the blank directoried we use as mount points, why are there cdrom and cdrom0, each one has a pointer or shortcut associated? I don't understand this mounting, and it's not from lack of reading on these boards. I'm in Debian with a 2.6 kernel, and here's dmesg |grep CD:

hdc: IDE-DVD DVDRW8651, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdd: Memorex 40MAXX 1248AJ, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdc: ATAPI 63X DVD-ROM DVD-R CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache, UDMA(33)
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
hdd: ATAPI 48X CD-ROM CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache, UDMA(33)

The odd thing to me is that Xine never gave a hoot about any of this, and plays DVD's great even though I cannot browse them or currently eject/unmount the one in there. It seems that something is mounting this stuff for me, and not correctly. What is it?

-HELP!!

duffmckagan · 10-23-2005, 07:02 AM

>Also - the blank directoried we use as mount points, why are there cdrom and cdrom0, each one has a pointer or shortcut associated?

Quite unclear.

What are you trying to say here?

jlinkels · 10-23-2005, 09:38 AM

With
"fuser /media/floppy"
you should be able to see who is using the device. Have you tried that?

jlinkels

lectraplayer · 10-23-2005, 03:20 PM

The fuser command may help me out some, though strangely, I can mount it with the mount command or with Konqueror's devices tab, but there seems to be no way to unmount it. The only way I can get a CD back is if Synaptic has mounted it using dpkg or something, and I don't think that truely mounts it but accesses it via the device file somehow.

I'm using a stock Debian/Sarge /etc/fstab. All looks well.

jlinkels · 10-23-2005, 05:15 PM

So, that is why I asked what the output of fuser is.

1. It gives you the process holding the device, giving you a pointer which process to terminate. If you see a process which does not exist anymore, it might be a process which got killed without proper cleanup etc.

2. It says no process holds the device, which means that something is wrong. (You already guessed that!). Is there some sort of database which tracks which device is used by which process? (Most likely in the /proc tree if it exists)

Another advice is to do this strictly in the console. You never know which complicated process in KDE interfers with your mounting/unmounting. It is difficult to start a Debian machine in striclty command line or to get it there (I don't understand why the Debian people had to mess around with that beautiful runlevel mechanism), but I know that there are a number of threads in this forum dealing with that problem.

jlinkels

lectraplayer · 10-23-2005, 08:29 PM

WTF is famd?

I just mounted my CD-RW via Konqueror this time and repeated the same problem. It's a root process.

I've isolated it down to something Konqueror's doing, I can do whatever I want in a terminal, if I mount my DVD drive in a terminal, then go in the already-mounted disk with Konqueror, the same thing happens. Again, famd nabs the disk and holds it. Strangely, I can do the same thing on a SuSE machine and this doesn't happen.

fsateler · 10-23-2005, 09:44 PM

Remember that if you have an open Konqueror window, then mount will say the device is in use (the same if your working directory in a console is the mount point).

PS: famd is the File Alteration Monitor Daemon. It notifies programs when files have changed (for example, to refresh the window).

lectraplayer · 10-24-2005, 08:51 PM

Thanks for the info, now I know why it's there. ...but my question is why doesn't it release the folder when I have got Konqueror looking at, say, /home/user/Docs and my terminal sitting at / (root) and I go to unmount it? Famd locks the folder down whather I'm looking in there or not, whather I mounted it myself or with the devices tab. I have forgotten and left Konqueror windows in folders I'm unmounting enough that I remember to check now. I've done the same with my terminal. When I say I'm out, I'm sure I'm completely out of there!

johnnyspire · 10-29-2005, 09:19 PM

Sorry for the delay - I gave up on this issue and started over with a fresh net-inst of Debian Sarge. I'm still impressed how easy it is to setup.

I wanted to sincerely thank jlinkels for all the helpful info. I'll remember fuser next time I'm seriously confused about what is using a device.

Also, I put my dvdrw inside my machine instead of running it as external USB device and this problem disappeared.

Oh, I was asking why in etc\mount where all the mount points are, i've got cdrom and then cdrom0 and then floppy and floppy0 and so on. I'll attempt to be far more verbose in my postings. I suppose I assumed this was commonplace and the answer would be simple.