USB drive... /dev/sda1 does not exist!

Lord Zoltar · 01-01-2005, 08:11 PM

I just got a shiny new USB flash drive for my birthday

I have read a few articles here, and they all seem to say that a flash drive should be mounted from /dev/sda1 to /mnt/usbflash
the only problem is... I don't have /dev/sda1 !
soooooo.... what now?

Lord Zoltar · 01-01-2005, 08:22 PM

I found another thread that said I should modprobe usb-uhci and usbcore and modprobe on both of these failed.
I have a custom compiled 2.6.9 kernel.

1veedo · 01-01-2005, 08:28 PM

I have the same problem. Except with my mp3 player that I want to mount (iAudio cw300). I found a thread dealing with this but they assumed I had the sda file

I'll watch this thread before starting my own as I'm pretty sure that's my one and only problem.

Brian1 · 01-01-2005, 09:03 PM

What is your output from ' lsmod ' when usb drive is plugged in
What is the output from ' fdisk -l ' when usb drive is plugged in
What is the outpu from ' cat /proc/scsi/scsi ' when drive is pluugged in

I would try loading modules last two will probably be the ones
uhci-hcd
ohci-hcd
ehci-hcd

Other modules
usb-storage

Then try the output from again.

Brian1
" Google the Linux way @ http://www.google.com/linux "

Scruff · 01-01-2005, 10:03 PM

Also, you'll prob want to make sure you have vfat support compiled into your kernel or loaded as a module.

Chrax · 01-01-2005, 10:29 PM

2.6.9 uses udev rather than the old devfs, which had some bugs. udev allows for persistent naming, among other things, which I have to say is really cool. There's a good manual on it at http://www.reactivated.net/writing_udev_rules.html

This is what I ended up adding to mine:

/etc/udev/rules.d/udev.rules

Code:

BUS="usb", SYSFS{serial}="33000000522000004034", KERNEL="sd?1", NAME="%k", SYMLINK="usb1"
BUS="usb", KERNEL="sd?1", NAME="%k"

You probably want something like the second line if you just want your old naming scheme back. The first one is my particular jumpdrive that I always want to be at usb1.

Scruff · 01-01-2005, 10:37 PM

Also, I would imagine Slack has hotplug set up as default (long time since I ran slack..), so try running

Code:

tail -f /var/log/messages

as root, then plug in your USB drive and see what it is recognized as.

drj000 · 01-02-2005, 12:16 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Lord Zoltar
I just got a shiny new USB flash drive for my birthday
I have read a few articles here, and they all seem to say that a flash drive should be mounted from /dev/sda1 to /mnt/usbflash
the only problem is... I don't have /dev/sda1 !
soooooo.... what now?

On my computer /dev/sda is the SD Card slot on my Media card reader, but sometimes, /dev/sda1 doesn't exist, even though /dev/sda does, even if I have a card inserted. However I found a way for it to "discover" sda1, sort of. I found that if I did fdisk -l /dev/sda, after I inserted the card, /dev/sda1 would then show up. Maybe if you try that after plugging in the flash drive, it'll work.

1veedo · 01-02-2005, 01:44 PM

Quote:

Orriginally posted by Brian1
What is your output from ' lsmod ' when usb drive is plugged in
What is the output from ' fdisk -l ' when usb drive is plugged in
What is the outpu from ' cat /proc/scsi/scsi ' when drive is pluugged in

I would try loading modules last two will probably be the ones
uhci-hcd
ohci-hcd
ehci-hcd

Other modules
usb-storage

Then try the output from again.

Brian1
" Google the Linux way @ http://www.google.com/linux "

I have uhci_hcd and ehci_hcd. I also have usblp (? It has 'usb'). They all show up with or with out the mp3 player plugged in though. So to load a module I just use /sbin/modprobe ehci-hcd? Then they'll be a superblock?

1veedo · 01-02-2005, 02:50 PM

Code:

dmesg | grep "usb"

gives me:

Code:

usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using address 2
usb 4-1: USB disconnect, address 2
usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using address 3
usb 4-1: USB disconnect, address 3
usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using address 4
usb 4-1: USB disconnect, address 4
usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using address 5
usb 4-1: USB disconnect, address 5
usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using address 6
usb 4-1: USB disconnect, address 6
usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using address 7
usb 4-1: USB disconnect, address 7

Every time I connect it, it seems like it adds another address. I got the grep command from here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ghlight=iAudio

The guy in that thread trying to connect his mp3 player is having the same problem as I

Regulus · 01-02-2005, 04:09 PM

What you should try is the following:

Code:

su -

Log in as root

Code:

tail -f /var/log/messages

This will put the last lines from /var/log/messages on your screen, while the -f option means that you follow the file, appending data as the file grows.
Plugin your USB device

If all goes as it should, something similar as below should be appended to the /var/log/messages file:

Code:

usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using address 2
scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
  Vendor: SigmaTel  Model: MSCNMMC           Rev: 0100
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
SCSI device sdb: 253600 512-byte hdwr sectors (130 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
 sdb: sdb1

The last line is most important, as this will tell you where the mountable partition of the USB device is located. In your case this may be /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, etc, or, when it is partitioned, /dev/sda1, /dev/sdb1, /dev/sdc1, etc.

Can you post the last lines from /var/log/messages after you've followed the above description?

Regards -- Regulus

Lord Zoltar · 01-02-2005, 04:25 PM

thanks for all the replies, guys!

ok, so I just plugged the drive in, ran `tail -f /var/log/messages` (as root of course) and got:

Code:

Jan  2 17:22:16 solomonsdesk udev[14966]: removing device node '/dev/sda1'
Jan  2 17:22:16 solomonsdesk udev[14985]: removing device node '/dev/sda'
Jan  2 17:22:16 solomonsdesk udev[14992]: removing device node '/dev/sda1'
Jan  2 17:22:16 solomonsdesk udev[14993]: removing device node '/dev/sda'
Jan  2 17:22:16 solomonsdesk udev[15000]: removing device node '/dev/sda1'
Jan  2 17:22:16 solomonsdesk udev[15001]: removing device node '/dev/sda'
Jan  2 17:22:16 solomonsdesk udev[15008]: removing device node '/dev/sda1'
Jan  2 17:22:16 solomonsdesk udev[15009]: removing device node '/dev/sda'
Jan  2 17:22:16 solomonsdesk udev[15016]: removing device node '/dev/sda1'
Jan  2 17:22:16 solomonsdesk udev[15017]: removing device node '/dev/sda'

and I thought WTF is it removing the same two devices over and over again? Should also mention that when I plugged the drive in, the CPU load chart kept spiking for a bout 30 sec and the mouse got very unresponsive.
The output of lsmod looks like this:

Code:

Module                  Size  Used by
usb_storage            59456  0
snd_pcm_oss            45608  0
snd_mixer_oss          15744  1 snd_pcm_oss
ipv6                  216192  10
ohci_hcd               17668  0
via_agp                 7424  1
shpchp                 89956  0
pciehp                 87268  0
uhci_hcd               27408  0
ehci_hcd               26628  0
snd_via82xx            20772  0
snd_ac97_codec         62288  1 snd_via82xx
snd_pcm                75912  2 snd_pcm_oss,snd_via82xx
snd_timer              19204  1 snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc          7432  2 snd_via82xx,snd_pcm
gameport                3584  1 snd_via82xx
snd_mpu401_uart         5504  1 snd_via82xx
snd_rawmidi            18596  1 snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device          6280  1 snd_rawmidi
snd                    42724  9 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
soundcore               6752  1 snd
via_rhine              17796  0
mii                     3968  1 via_rhine
crc32                   4096  1 via_rhine
nvidia               4812116  12
ds                     13572  0
yenta_socket           17536  0
pcmcia_core            53060  2 ds,yenta_socket
evdev                   7168  0
psmouse                18312  0
ide_scsi               12932  0
agpgart                26920  2 via_agp

and Brian1, you can see that those three modules you suggested are already loaded.

I thought I'd also look at dmesg's output and got this:

Code:

dmesg | grep usb
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 56
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 57
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 57
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 58
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 58
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 59
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 59
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 60
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 60
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 61
usb 1-5: device not accepting address 61, error -71
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 62
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 62
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 63
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 63
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 64
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 64
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 65
usb 1-5: device not accepting address 65, error -71
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 66
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 66
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 67
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 67
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 68
usb 1-5: device descriptor read/all, error -71
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 70
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 70
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 71
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 71
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 72
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 72
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 73
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 73
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 74
usb 1-5: string descriptor 0 read error: -71
usb 1-5: string descriptor 0 read error: -71
usb 1-5: string descriptor 0 read error: -71
usb-storage: probe of 1-5:1.0 failed with error -1
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 74
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 75
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 75
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 76
usb 1-5: device not accepting address 76, error -71
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 77
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 77
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 78
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 78
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 79
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 79
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 80
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 80
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 81
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 81
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 82
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 82
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 83
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 83
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 84
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 84
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 85
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 85
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 86
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 86
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 87
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 87
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 88
usb 1-5: USB disconnect, address 88
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 89
usb 1-5: device not accepting address 89, error -71
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using address 90
usb 1-5: device not accepting address 90, error -71

so something is definitely going bad here...

my udev file contains the following lines about USB

Code:

cat /etc/udev/rules.d/udev.rules | grep usb
KERNEL="hiddev*",       NAME="usb/%k"
KERNEL="auer*",         NAME="usb/%k"
KERNEL="legousbtower*", NAME="usb/%k"
KERNEL="dabusb*",       NAME="usb/%k"
BUS="usb", KERNEL="lp[0-9]*",   NAME="usb/%k"

...oh, and drj000, your fdisk trick did not seem to do anything, but I don't even have a /dev/sda

Regulus · 01-02-2005, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Lord Zoltar
so something is definitely going bad here...

That's a good one to start this year's "understatement of the year"!

Have you tried a reboot? It may be that, while you were trying to fix the problem, something went wrong that's bugging you now. A reboot may clear you of those bugs.

After rebooting try it again, and post the output of /var/log/messages again (preferentially from the moment you attached the device, as it may give information about what's wrong).

Success -- Regulus

Lord Zoltar · 01-02-2005, 05:14 PM

Regulus: the computer has been rebooted since yesterday when I first discovered the3 problem and today when I tried to do stuff again. But since I only was passive today (reading logs, etc...) nothing I have done would have had an effect, so rebooting would probably not do much. I will be rebooting again in 5 minutes to switch to windows, but I doubt when I boot back into linux anything will change

Brian1 · 01-02-2005, 05:51 PM

Got a thought here Lord Zoltar. Kernel 2.6.9 is not very good at USB. Can not see some deivces that a 2.6.7 kernel did. Suggest you try an older kernel if you still have installed or try 2.6.10-rc2. Any release of 2.6.9.* did not see my MP3 Player. 2.6.7.rc2 did with no problem. Moved onto 2.6.10-rc2 and no problems again.

Brian1
" Google the Linux way @ http://www.google.com/linux "