>> Well - if I read that correctly...

If you were mounting to /dev/sdb1 - and it worked.. then you pulled out your SCSI drive - it would then switch to /dev/sda1 .... reinstalling it wouldn't have fixed it. <<

I reinstalled Linux as well as the drive. Whatever, the thing that screwed it all up was pulling out the SCSI HDD.

The thing that I don't understand now is the fact that it's telling me

/dev/sdb1 is not a valid block device, despite that doing

ls /dev/sdb1 -l

shows it *is* a block device. ie b is the first character in the listing.

I suppose it's saying it *is* a block device, but it's not valid - so why?!

Cheers,

Rob

Ok - so you put the SCSI drive back in?

If you type ' dmesg ' - does it detect both both drives..

Just because the character/block file is there doesn't mean anything - you'll notice that there is a character/block file for just about everything in existance for linux already made on your /dev directory.

The easiest way to see if it sees the camera at all is to do a cat /proc/scsi/scsi.

If it shows up in that file then you are just mounting the wrong device.

John

Thanks for the suggestions, chaps. Here are the results of the UK jury!:

>> Ok - so you put the SCSI drive back in? <<

Yep.

>> If you type ' dmesg ' - does it detect both both drives.. <<

No, it only lists sda.

>> The easiest way to see if it sees the camera at all is to do a cat /proc/scsi/scsi. <<

All it sees here again is the actual Quantum Fireball HDD.

>> Just because the character/block file is there doesn't mean anything - you'll notice that there is a character/block file for just about everything in existance for linux already made on your /dev directory. <<

Yep, I've done a bit of reading on this and understand a little of the /dev directories - but obviously not enough! <g>

I leaves me with two questions:

1. If the character block file being there doesn't mean anything, how do you *make* it mean something?

2. Is this something to do with dependencies? Is there possible some dependency I don't have? Maybe there's more than one thing wrong here...

Hmmmmm, now it's working again. I'm not really sure what I've done to make it work though which is a little annoying! I poked around, did a

cat /proc/bus/usb/devices

and could see the camera on the USB port, so I switched it [the camera] off to prove it went away when powered down - and it did.

mount -r -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/fuji

then does the trick.

Ah well.

thanks very much for all your help, it's greatly appreciated. :-)

Cheers,

Rob

To answer your questions, 1 - you don't make them do anything. There files are created there for you with the appropriate major and minor numbers. Let me give you a quick 101 on this as I understand it. Each file in the /dev directory is usually either a "character" file, associated to a character device (mouse, keyboard, etc) or a block file, associated ot a block device (hard drive, floppy drive, etc). Each file, regardess if it's a character or block or whatever is associated to a major and minor number. This major and minor number is the "address" of the hardware on your system.. kind of like an address to somebodies house. If you do an "ls -l fd0*" you will give an output similiar to below:

brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 2, 0 Aug 30 15:30 /dev/fd0

You will notice after the word floppy, there is a 2, 0 .. this is the major and minor numbers - Major 2, Minor 0 ... This is the address to this specific type of device. If you notice on the other floppy devices, they have different minor numbers. For example the device /dev/fd0h1660 - you would use this device to format a floppy drive to 1.66 megs instead of 1.44 megs (depending if your system supports it.. mine does not).

Even if this file is created, doesn't mean the device is actually there, aka at that address. Basically these files are created for your convienance in advance, so you don't have to do it. Sometimes, you will add a new piece of hardware, that isn't typically used and you will have to create one of these files, using the 'mknod' command. For example, I had to do this for my Thinkpad Laptop in order to use the Linux thinkpad utilities. I had to create a /dev/thinkpad character file to access my SMAPI BIOS in order to change BIOS settings.

Hope this makes sense....

2 - Yes there are dependencies in everything. Identifying those depencencies can bet a pain in the ass sometimes though. A dependencies for a /dev file to work, is obviously having the hardware, having the appropriate driver loaded via a module or in the kernel, and have that driver access the write I/O addresses etc. But the generally answer to your question is yes.

Take care - and don't give up!

- Ryan

I have been looking for a way to get my SIIG model US2237 Smart Media Reader to be recognized by Linux.
On my computer, I have two CD's that, I think, are recognized as SCSI. So perhaps this reader would be my third SCSI device?
any advice? The SIIG guys told me that the reader is not compatible with Linux.

I believe your device is compatible with linux using the storage media methods discussed above. I haven't used that exact device but it is quite close to many others that work.

You can get its scsi id by doing a cat /proc/scsi/scsi assuming you have mounted the proc file system and you have all the right scsi devices setup as discussed above. If you have any questions feel free to ask on here or by e-mail.

John
jtshaw@resnet.gatech.edu

Dear sir,
We have bought a Flash Drive.
In the windows 98 it worked perfectly.
But in our Linux (kernel 2.4.18) we didnt't get to install it.
We would like you could inform us step by step all the procedure to the Flash Drive installation in the Linux
Where is /dev/??? for the USB Flash Drive ??
We also would like to know if Flash Drive can be connected/disconnected when the PC is turned on.
We need these information with urgency.
We thank you help in advance.
José
Brazil
emblarq@terra.com.br

I did what worked for you and it did not work for me:

# mount -r -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/olympus
mount: mount point /mnt/olympus does not exist

kernel does see olympus 3000-z attached to usb, so I don't understand why mount command doesn't see the mount point. hmm... I fear i miss the point completely. is it something to do with fstab or mtab?

ok, i did not add an entry for my camera in fstab because i am not sure i have to.

gphoto doesn't support my camera anyway, but gphoto2 command line interface does the job well.

However I'd like to have a gui approach to graphics and I'd like to use my camera entirely in a gui environement. I remember some months ago I tried RH8. I don't remember what was the name of the application, but I could attach the camera to USB, and see the icon pop-up on the desktop.

I 'd like to have this in Mandrake 9.0 too. How do I get it? Thanks, indeed.

I added an entry in both fstab and mtab:

/dev/sdb1 /mnt/olympus vfat noauto,user,ro 0 0

I try to run:

mount -r -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /mnt/olympus

I get:

mount: special device /dev/sdb1 does not exist

Can anyone tell how to bring to existence that /dev/sdb sda or whatever, and how do I know to which usb slot exactly the camera is attached?

Regards,
l

You can learn quite a lot from plugging stuff into USB, switching on and reading the terminal blurb. That's how I learnt to use my Palm Zire as a USB device (it hotsyncs on USB1 rather than 0).

I have slackware-current and a nikon coolpix sq
the device is seen both in the scsi and in the usb /proc files but gphoto seem not to see anything attached nor I could possibly mount anything 'cause both vfat both msdos gave me wrong fs type or too many attached filesystem....

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