USB Compact flash card reader hotplug creates /dev/sda but no /dev/sda1 -Mandrake 9.1
 

Hie!

I've just bought a USB CF card reader. It works fine with the knoppix 3..2 (I have stored files on it) but not with the Mandrake 9.1.

uname -r : 2.4.21-0.18mdk.

Although, under Mandrake 9.1, the device is recognized as a USB Mass Storage Device as you can see below in the /var/log/messages file :

Aug 11 09:43:14 pingouin kernel: hub.c: new USB device 00:13.0-1.1, assigned address 4
Aug 11 09:43:14 pingouin kernel: usb.c: USB device 4 (vend/prod 0x58f/0x9360) is not claimed by any active driver.
Aug 11 09:43:17 pingouin /etc/hotplug/usb.agent: Setup usb-storage for USB product 58f/9360/100
Aug 11 09:43:17 pingouin kernel: Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
Aug 11 09:43:17 pingouin kernel: usb.c: registered new driver usb-storage
Aug 11 09:43:17 pingouin kernel: scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Aug 11 09:43:17 pingouin kernel: usb-uhci.c: interrupt, status 3, frame# 960
Aug 11 09:43:17 pingouin kernel: Vendor: Generic Model: USB SD Reader Rev: 1.00
Aug 11 09:43:17 pingouin kernel: Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Aug 11 09:43:17 pingouin kernel: Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin kernel: sda : READ CAPACITY failed.
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin kernel: sda : status = 1, message = 00, host = 0, driver = 08
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin kernel: Info fld=0x0, Current sd00:00: sense key Not Ready
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin kernel: Additional sense indicates Medium not present
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin kernel: sda : block size assumed to be 512 bytes, disk size 1GB.
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin kernel: /dev/scsi/host1/bus0/target0/lun0: I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 0
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin kernel: I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 0
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin kernel: I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 2097144
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin kernel: I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 2097144
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin kernel: I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 0
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin kernel: I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 0
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin kernel: ldm_validate_partition_table(): Disk read failed.
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin kernel: I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 0
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin kernel: unable to read partition table
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin kernel: USB Mass Storage support registered.
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin /etc/hotplug/usb.agent: Module setup usb-storage for USB product 58f/9360/100
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin /etc/hotplug/usb/usb-storage: Load scsimon
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin /etc/hotplug/usb/usb-storage: loading ... scsimon
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin /etc/hotplug/scsi.agent: sr_mod allready loaded
Aug 11 09:43:18 pingouin /etc/hotplug/scsi.agent: sd_mod allready loaded


So, as the capacity of the card (it's a 256Mo) connot be read, a /dev/sda is created when I plug the card reader, but no /dev/sda1... :( => no icon appears on the desktop

Any idea ?

probably your card is not partitioned at all ?

try "fdisk -l /dev/sda" and check if there is a partition table on your CF card

Thank you for your help, but I've found the answer in an other thread... The problem came from the fact that I've got a 6 in 1 reader, and such a device is devided into 4 "sub" readers (CF/MD, SmartMedia, MemoryStick and SecureDigital) viewed as scsi devices /dev/sda, sdb, sdc and sdd. But the kernel viewed only the first one (/dev/sda), and it wasn't the CF reader. To make it work, the kernel must be compiled with the option "Probe all LUNs on each SCSI device" in "SCSI support" (CONFIG_SCSI_MULTI_LUN=y).

This was not the case with the kernel of the Mandrake 9.1... so I had to recompile the kernel... and now it works fine... :)