Hello!

I bought a Western digital hardrive and a Coolmax Data Backup external enclosure.

That give me an external usb harddrive to do backup of my computer.

But both of my Linux Suse 10.2 and Fedora Core do not detect it.

But my Windows system detect it.

Can you help me please to fix that?

Thanks!

Stephane

since nobody is helping you at all, i'll try to give some basic advice.

in a linux distro, open a terminal and become root. Type lsusb (list usb devices) and hit enter without the drive connected.

then, connect the drive and run the command again to see if there is a difference. List the output here.

Also, after you connect the drive, run the command dmesg and then give us maybe the last 100 lines or whatever regarding anything USB.

does everything else USB work?

I was about to post almost the exact same question, except I have an I/O magic enclosure. The hard drive was not recognized by Fedora 6 or Fedora 7 or even Windows Vista. No Vista or Linux drivers available from I/O magic. (I really don't care about Vista, it isn't even my system)

I will try the above on Fedora 7 and post my results. I suspect others are or will be having the same problems.

RetiredInMaine

OK, I did as directed above. As near as I can see the external HD was detected but I still can't see it. About dmesg, I copied over everything I could find about usb. Hope someone can tell me what's going on.

lsusb before connecting external HD

Bus 004 Device 004: ID 04b8:0813 Seiko Epson Corp.
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0572:0001 Conexant Systems (Rockwell), Inc. Ezcam II WebCam
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

lsusb after connecting external HD
Bus 004 Device 005: ID 067b:2506 Prolific Technology, Inc. <<<<<<<<< note the addition
Bus 004 Device 004: ID 04b8:0813 Seiko Epson Corp.
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0572:0001 Conexant Systems (Rockwell), Inc. Ezcam II WebCam
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

partial output of dmesg
..
..
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
usbcore: registered new device driver usb
..
..
usbcore: registered new interface driver libusual
usbcore: registered new interface driver hiddev
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.6:USB HID core driver
..
..
USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v3.0
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:10.0[A] -> GSI 21 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.0: UHCI Host Controller
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.0: irq 16, io base 0x0000e400
usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:10.1[B] -> GSI 21 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.1: UHCI Host Controller
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.1: irq 16, io base 0x0000e800
usb usb2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 2-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:10.2[C] -> GSI 21 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.2: UHCI Host Controller
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.2: irq 16, io base 0x0000ec00
usb usb3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 3-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
ohci_hcd: 2006 August 04 USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:10.3[D] -> GSI 21 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
ehci_hcd 0000:00:10.3: EHCI Host Controller
ehci_hcd 0000:00:10.3: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 4
ehci_hcd 0000:00:10.3: irq 16, io mem 0xdfffff00
ehci_hcd 0000:00:10.3: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00, driver 10 Dec 2004
usb usb4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 4-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 4-0:1.0: 6 ports detected
..
..

usb 4-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 4-6: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 3
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
usb-storage: device scan complete
scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access WDC WD12 00JB-00DUA3 75.1 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
SCSI device sdb: 234441648 512-byte hdwr sectors (120034 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sdb: 234441648 512-byte hdwr sectors (120034 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
sdb: sdb1
sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sdb
sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
usb 4-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
usb 4-4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
scsi3 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 4
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 4 if 1 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x04B8 pid 0x0813
usbcore: registered new interface driver usblp
drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: v0.13: USB Printer Device Class driver
usb-storage: device scan complete
scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access EPSON Stylus Storage 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sdc
sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0
usb 4-6: USB disconnect, address 3
usb 4-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5
usb 4-6: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 5
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
usb-storage: device scan complete
scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access WDC WD12 00JB-00DUA3 75.1 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
SCSI device sdb: 234441648 512-byte hdwr sectors (120034 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sdb: 234441648 512-byte hdwr sectors (120034 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
sdb: sdb1
sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sdb
sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
usb 4-4: USB disconnect, address 4
drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: usblp0: removed


Thanks in advance for spending the time to help.

RetiredInMaine

ok well first thing to try is this:

modprobe usb-storage

(this loads the usb storage modules (in case that was hard to guess). When you run that usually you will see that it is detected via the console. Check dmesg afterwards if you don't get any output to see if it's there. They work pretty much out of the box if you run this module.

For me the problem was the jumper of the hard drive.

It was set to master.

I seted it on cs and it now detect it.

i think usb-storage is already loaded...

it looks as if you have a epson printer and the hard drive connected at boot, then you disconnected the hard drive, and reconnected it, then removed the printer from the dmesg logs.

ok, the kernel detects the drive and all that, and it gave your hard drive the device node "sdb1"

i heard that fedora 7 is a little flaky (like problems with wireless), so lets try mounting the drive manually now that the kernel knows it exists.

commands as root:
just for insurance:
then, to mount:
1. make a folder in /media or /mnt:
OR
2. mount the drive in the folder:
so, if i did this:
umount /dev/sdb1
mkdir /media/usbhdd

i would do this:
mount /dev/sdb1 /media/usbhdd

I did 2 things, I jumpered my WD HD as a slave and then I created a folder /media/exhd. Then I mounted the drive. Since I pulled the drive out of a Fedora 6 machine I tried to mount it as ext3 but that didn't work. Then I tried " mount -t tmpfs /dev/sdb1 /media/exhd" which seemed to work since I did not receive any error messages. However I can not find the drive. The /media/exhd folder is empty. I also looked at filesystem from the Computer icon but it's not there.

Three questions.

Where the heck is my drive?
Can I reformat it as ext3?
Can I set it up to automount when I hotplug it? I want to use for backup and to keep my desktop and laptop in sync.

Again, thanks for helping me. At least we're making progress

RetiredInMaine

at this point, like i said, i'm not exactly expierenced with this kind of stuff...

maybe you should try a live cd of a different distro

OK, for anyone looking at this the problem was my inexperience with Linux. When I went to the folder I had mounted the drive to I expected to see an icon, all I saw was an empty folder. After some reading and experimentation I discovered that the folder was now my HD. Since I did not have any files on it it showed up as an empty folder. I verified that it was my hard drive by copying a file to it. Then I unmounted the drive and the file vanished.

Unfortunately the drive is formated as a temp file system so anything written to it goes away when I unmount it. So now I need to reformat it. I also need to repartition it to get rid of the boot partition on that drive. So now I am reading up on parted.