Strange USB flash drive behavior

SamuelHenderson · 09-13-2006, 10:19 AM

Firstly, I apologize in advance if this particular topic has been dealt with before on these forums. I tried searching for my problem and it came up with 600 results, and yet none seem to be applicable to my circumstances.

I recently switched to Fedora Core 5 because one of our teachers prefers it over Ubuntu. That wasn't really a problem. The installation was very smooth.

After getting to my desktop, I plugged in my USB flash drive (SanDisk Cruzer Micro 2.0GB). Lo and behold, nothing happened. I read this thread . I got to the part where it was talking about viewing the messages the kernel is spitting out every 3 seconds. When I plugged the Flash Drive in I got this as output

Code:

Sep 13 11:08:27 localhost kernel: usb 2-6: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 16
Sep 13 11:08:27 localhost kernel: usb 2-6: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Sep 13 11:08:27 localhost kernel: scsi5 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Sep 13 11:08:32 localhost kernel:   Vendor: SanDisk   Model: U3 Cruzer Micro   Rev: 2.16
Sep 13 11:08:32 localhost kernel:   Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Sep 13 11:08:32 localhost kernel: SCSI device sda: 4001425 512-byte hdwr sectors (2049 MB)
Sep 13 11:08:32 localhost kernel: sda: Write Protect is off
Sep 13 11:08:32 localhost kernel: sda: assuming drive cache: write through
Sep 13 11:08:32 localhost kernel: SCSI device sda: 4001425 512-byte hdwr sectors (2049 MB)
Sep 13 11:08:32 localhost kernel: sda: Write Protect is off
Sep 13 11:08:32 localhost kernel: sda: assuming drive cache: write through
Sep 13 11:08:32 localhost kernel:  sda: sda1
Sep 13 11:08:32 localhost kernel: sd 5:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sda
Sep 13 11:08:32 localhost kernel: sd 5:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
Sep 13 11:08:32 localhost kernel:   Vendor: SanDisk   Model: U3 Cruzer Micro   Rev: 2.16
Sep 13 11:08:32 localhost kernel:   Type:   CD-ROM                             ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Sep 13 11:08:32 localhost kernel: sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 8x/40x writer xa/form2 cdda tray
Sep 13 11:08:32 localhost kernel: sr 5:0:0:1: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 5
Sep 13 11:08:32 localhost kernel: cdrom: This disc doesn't have any tracks I recognize!

At first I also had a new CDROM icon on my desktop and a USB SanDisk Cruzer Micro icon in my "Places->Computer". When I opened the USB SanDisk all my files were there on the jump drive. I then went and unmounted both the Jump Drive and the phantom CDROM drive thingy to see what would happen.

Now when I plug the drive back in, nothing happens. I can cd to /mnt and run "mount usbstick" and the drive is mounted to /mnt/usbstick from there I can read all my files on the drive.

What I would like to know is how do I change the type from CD-ROM to whatever it is supposed to be when I plug the jump drive in?

also, I noticed that whenever type something the kernel outputs this

Code:

Sep 13 11:15:01 localhost kernel: atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0xd9 on isa0060/serio0).
Sep 13 11:15:01 localhost kernel: atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e059 <keycode>' to make it known.

It made the whole following along part rather troublesome.

svarmido · 09-15-2006, 03:39 PM

Take a look at your fstab file, "/etc/fstab", to see how your drive(s) are defined. Can you write to and copy from your USB flash drive? Take a look at "dmesg" for additional hints.

svarmido

Electro · 09-15-2006, 04:37 PM

I keep on saying to several people. I recommend do not list any USB or IEEE-1394 (aka Firewire or i.Link) in /etc/fstab because in many cases one USB/IEEE-1394 drive may be listed as /dev/sda and /dev/sdb. This happens if you did not give enough time for devfsd or udev to respond to the disconnect command. Try using udev, hotplug scripts, or dbus to handle the mounting for a device that you use over and over again.

I suggest not using U3 USB devices in any OS because they create problems even though it is designed only for Windows XP. Security is the highest problem for these devices. U3 disks includes two partitions. One is a CD-ROM like partition and other is a regular partition.

U3 site - http://www.u3.com/
About and problems of an U3 dsk - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U3

SamuelHenderson · 09-17-2006, 11:03 PM

I believe the problem is the U3 portion of the drive. My friend has a non-u3 device and it seems to work fine. I'm not using my linux drive right now but I will update once I get back to school.