More trouble with certain usb flash drives...
 

I am having trouble with a sony 256mb flash drive. My other flash drive made by universal smart drive works flawlessly in linux, so I know all the usb modules are getting loaded. I am using redhat 9 with kernel 2.4.20-28.9smp. I have a feeling it's a file table problem. With my working stick my fdisk table looks like this.

Disk /dev/sdb: 65 MB, 65536000 bytes
8 heads, 32 sectors/track, 500 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 256 * 512 = 131072 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 500 63972+ b Win95 FAT32

here is the kernel entry when I insert the working stick

Mar 30 16:58:07 ywgsnr09 kernel: hub.c: new USB device 00:1d.2-1, assigned address 14
Mar 30 16:58:10 ywgsnr09 /etc/hotplug/usb.agent: Setup usb-storage for USB product 483/1307/130
Mar 30 16:58:11 ywgsnr09 kernel: SCSI device sdb: 128000 512-byte hdwr sectors (66 MB)Mar 30 16:59:50 ywgsnr09 kernel: hub.c: new USB device 00:1d.7-5, assigned address 12
Mar 30 16:58:11 ywgsnr09 kernel: usb-uhci.c: interrupt, status 3, frame# 249
Mar 30 16:58:11 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdb: Write Protect is off
Mar 30 16:58:11 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdb: sdb1

Now for the non working card.

Mar 30 16:59:50 ywgsnr09 kernel: hub.c: USB hub found
Mar 30 16:59:50 ywgsnr09 kernel: hub.c: 1 port detected
Mar 30 16:59:53 ywgsnr09 /etc/hotplug/usb.agent: Setup usbcore for USB product 54c/105/1
Mar 30 16:59:53 ywgsnr09 /etc/hotplug/usb.agent: Setup usbcore for USB product 54c/105/1
Mar 30 16:59:54 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdb : READ CAPACITY failed.
Mar 30 16:59:54 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdb : status = 1, message = 00, host = 0, driver = 08
Mar 30 16:59:54 ywgsnr09 kernel: Info fld=0xa00 (nonstd), Current sd00:00: sense key Not Ready
Mar 30 16:59:54 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdb : block size assumed to be 512 bytes, disk size 1GB.
Mar 30 16:59:54 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdb: test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
Mar 30 16:59:54 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdb: I/O error: dev 08:10, sector 0
Mar 30 16:59:54 ywgsnr09 kernel: I/O error: dev 08:10, sector 0
Mar 30 16:59:54 ywgsnr09 kernel: unable to read partition table
Mar 30 16:59:54 ywgsnr09 kernel: Device not ready. Make sure there is a disc in the drive.
Mar 30 16:59:54 ywgsnr09 kernel: Device not ready. Make sure there is a disc in the drive.
Mar 30 16:59:55 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdc : READ CAPACITY failed.
Mar 30 16:59:55 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdc : status = 1, message = 00, host = 0, driver = 08
Mar 30 16:59:55 ywgsnr09 kernel: Info fld=0xa00 (nonstd), Current sd00:00: sense key Not Ready
Mar 30 16:59:55 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdc : block size assumed to be 512 bytes, disk size 1GB.
Mar 30 16:59:55 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdc: test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
Mar 30 16:59:55 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdc: I/O error: dev 08:20, sector 0
Mar 30 16:59:55 ywgsnr09 kernel: I/O error: dev 08:20, sector 0
Mar 30 16:59:55 ywgsnr09 kernel: unable to read partition table
Mar 30 16:59:55 ywgsnr09 devlabel: devlabel service started/restarted
Mar 30 16:59:55 ywgsnr09 kernel: hub.c: new USB device 00:1d.7-5.1, assigned address 13
Mar 30 16:59:58 ywgsnr09 /etc/hotplug/usb.agent: Setup usb-storage for USB product 54c/8b/1
Mar 30 17:00:00 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdb : READ CAPACITY failed.
Mar 30 17:00:00 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdb : status = 1, message = 00, host = 0, driver = 08
Mar 30 17:00:00 ywgsnr09 kernel: Info fld=0xa00 (nonstd), Current sd00:00: sense key Not Ready
Mar 30 17:00:00 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdb : block size assumed to be 512 bytes, disk size 1GB.
Mar 30 17:00:00 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdb: test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
Mar 30 17:00:00 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdb: I/O error: dev 08:10, sector 0
Mar 30 17:00:00 ywgsnr09 kernel: I/O error: dev 08:10, sector 0
Mar 30 17:00:00 ywgsnr09 kernel: unable to read partition table
Mar 30 17:00:00 ywgsnr09 kernel: Device not ready. Make sure there is a disc in the

Mar 30 17:00:00 ywgsnr09 kernel: Device not ready. Make sure there is a disc in the drive.
Mar 30 17:00:00 ywgsnr09 kernel: SCSI device sdc: 512000 512-byte hdwr sectors (262 MB)
Mar 30 17:00:00 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdc: Write Protect is off
Mar 30 17:00:00 ywgsnr09 kernel: sdc: sdc1 sdc2 sdc4
Mar 30 17:00:00 ywgsnr09 devlabel: devlabel service started/restarted

So it looks like it scans the bus for the first card, then kicks the new card to the sdc bus. now have a look at the fdisk entry for the non working card


drive.Disk /dev/sdc: 262 MB, 262144000 bytes
9 heads, 56 sectors/track, 1015 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 504 * 512 = 258048 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 ? 3709864 4044566 84344761 69 Unknown
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(68, 13, 10) logical=(3709863, 7, 22)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(288, 115, 43) logical=(4044565, 2, 15)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdc2 ? 3376031 7086113 934940732+ 73 Unknown
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(371, 114, 37) logical=(3376030, 6, 26)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(366, 32, 33) logical=(7086112, 8, 50)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdc3 ? 6 6 0 74 Unknown
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(371, 114, 37) logical=(5, 0, 54)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(372, 97, 50) logical=(5, 0, 53)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdc4 5725558 5725662 26207+ 0 Empty
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(0, 0, 0) logical=(5725557, 7, 33)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(0, 0, 0) logical=(5725661, 7, 31)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Before all this I formatted the stick in win2k to use fat32. It shows up fine in 2k and is readable/writeable fine. Is there a way to force this device to only have 1 partition? whenever I try to mkfs -t vfat /dev/sdc it says

mkfs.vfat 2.8 (28 Feb 2001)
mkfs.vfat: Will not try to make filesystem on '/dev/sdc'

So I am not sure whats going on with this card. Any one have any ideas?

Ryan

oh yeah forgot to say that the non working card is a sony USM256U2

Ryan

Most of the error messages you are seeing are normal for an operational sony microvault, including the abnormal looking fdisk output. Though I do find it curious that hotplug tries to use usbcore first rather than usb-storage. Couple of things, first:

Can you mount the drive? Like this:

mount /dev/sdc /mnt

If you can mount it, then cd into the /mnt directory and see if you can see the microvault's files.

if not, what modules do you have loaded? After a reboot, use the lsmod command to give you a listing of your loaded modules before you insert the sony microdrive and then run it again afterwards. Also what distribution and version of linux are you using?