I just bought an Olympus Camedia MAUSB-4W SmartMedia/Compact Flash reader for my system. I'm running RedHat 7.2 and kernel 2.4.18. I can read the SmartMedia in my digital camera just fine (Olympus C3020Z) as a USB mass storage device. However I can't get Linux to recognize the SmartReader. I'm assuming it is also a USB mass storage device but am not sure. I've been using "mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/smartmedia -o umask=000" to mount the media while it is in the camera and that works great.

Any ideas?

Check the kernel config to see if SanDisk SDDR-09 support is compiled into the usb-storage module.

It wasn't so I added it but then got some message like "unsupported device on bus". So I just removed it again, figuring it was not working. Should I have explored further?

If the support isn't in the module you'll have to recompile your kernel with it added.

Ok, I added support for the SanDisk SDDR-09 and recompiled the kernel. Recompile was successful. However when I try to mount with this command:

mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/smartmedia

I get this message:

mount: /dev/sda1 is not a valid block device.

There is a card in the SmartReader.

I'm quite willing to accept the fact that I just don't know what I'm doing. If I'm missing something stupid or just got it all wrong let me know.

contents of /proc/bus/usb/devices:

T: Bus=03 Lev=00 Prnt=00 Port=00 Cnt=00 Dev#= 1 Spd=12 MxCh= 3
B: Alloc= 0/900 us ( 0%), #Int= 0, #Iso= 0
D: Ver= 1.10 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs= 1
P: Vendor=0000 ProdID=0000 Rev= 0.00
S: Product=USB OHCI Root Hub
S: SerialNumber=d081d000
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=40 MxPwr= 0mA
I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=hub
E: Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS= 2 Ivl=255ms
T: Bus=02 Lev=00 Prnt=00 Port=00 Cnt=00 Dev#= 1 Spd=12 MxCh= 2
B: Alloc= 0/900 us ( 0%), #Int= 0, #Iso= 0
D: Ver= 1.10 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs= 1
P: Vendor=0000 ProdID=0000 Rev= 0.00
S: Product=USB OHCI Root Hub
S: SerialNumber=d081b000
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=40 MxPwr= 0mA
I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=hub
E: Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS= 2 Ivl=255ms
T: Bus=01 Lev=00 Prnt=00 Port=00 Cnt=00 Dev#= 1 Spd=12 MxCh= 2
B: Alloc= 0/900 us ( 0%), #Int= 0, #Iso= 0
D: Ver= 1.00 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs= 1
P: Vendor=0000 ProdID=0000 Rev= 0.00
S: Product=USB UHCI-alt Root Hub
S: SerialNumber=ef80
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=40 MxPwr= 0mA
I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=hub
E: Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS= 8 Ivl=255ms
T: Bus=01 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=01 Cnt=01 Dev#= 2 Spd=12 MxCh= 0
D: Ver= 1.00 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=00 Prot=ff MxPS= 8 #Cfgs= 1
P: Vendor=0917 ProdID=0010 Rev= 0.91
S: Manufacturer=SmartDisk Corp.
S: Product=SM/CF Combo USB Reader
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=80 MxPwr=500mA
I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=00 Prot=ff Driver=(none)
E: Ad=81(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 64 Ivl= 0ms
E: Ad=02(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 64 Ivl= 0ms

What are the permissions on /dev/sda1?

ls -l devsda1 in /dev yields:

brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 1 Aug 30 2001 sda1

I think that list the permissions, doesn't it?

oops should be

ls -l sda1

Try changing it to rw-rw-rw and what does the /etc/fstab entry look like?

I changed it with:

chmod 666 /dev/sda1

I'm not mounting it in fstab at all.

still got /dev/sda1 is not a valid block device when I try to mount it.

Try using /dev/sda, instead of /dev/sda1, when mounting and see if that helps.

using sda resulted in the same message (/dev/sda is not a valid block device)

Is this line from /proc/bus/usb/devices relevant esp driver=(none)?

If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=00 Prot=ff Driver=(none)

Thanks for all the assistance, Aussie. I do appreciate it.

I'm out of idea's...all I can suggest now is you check out this usb-storage page and the driver page.

I use a smartmedia reader (MAUSB-2) since a few minutes. It
works well with RedHat 7.3. However, for my first mount
attempt, I also got an error message ("not a valid block
device"). I made a mistake : the card was simply inserted
on the wrong side !