USB Flash Drive Problem

dh4 · 12-22-2009, 09:58 PM

I have been having problems mounting my USB flash drive and I think it may be corrupt. If it is corrupt, can anyone suggest some possibilities for recovering. I have been trying to use fdisk and fsck to figure out what's going on. What I have found out is below.

When I plug in my USB flash drive with

Code:

tail -f /var/log/messages

running I get the following output:

Code:

Dec 22 22:00:41 localhost kernel: usb 1-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 57
Dec 22 22:00:41 localhost kernel: usb 1-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Dec 22 22:00:41 localhost kernel: scsi17 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Dec 22 22:00:46 localhost kernel: scsi 17:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Generic  STORAGE DEVICE   9407 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
Dec 22 22:01:16 localhost kernel: usb 1-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 57
Dec 22 22:01:43 localhost kernel:last message repeated 4 times
Dec 22 22:01:43 localhost kernel: sd 17:0:0:0: scsi: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery
Dec 22 22:01:43 localhost kernel: sd 17:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to offline device
Dec 22 22:01:43 localhost kernel:last message repeated 2 times
Dec 22 22:01:43 localhost kernel: sd 17:0:0:0: [sdb] READ CAPACITY failed
Dec 22 22:01:43 localhost kernel: sd 17:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_NO_CONNECT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK
Dec 22 22:01:43 localhost kernel: sd 17:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense not available.
Dec 22 22:01:43 localhost kernel: sd 17:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to offline device
Dec 22 22:01:43 localhost kernel: sd 17:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
Dec 22 22:01:43 localhost kernel: sd 17:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Dec 22 22:01:43 localhost kernel: sd 17:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
Dec 22 22:01:43 localhost kernel: sd 17:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0

I'm not crazy about a couple of the messages I see there "READ CAPACITY failed" and "Device offlines - not ready after error recovery". But I can see the device is there via lsusb and that it is at /dev/sdb from using lsscsi:

Code:

> /sbin/lsusb
Bus 001 Device 057: ID 0781:b2b5 SanDisk Corp.
> /sbin/lsscsi
[17:0:0:0]  disk  Generic  STORAGE DEVICE  9407  /dev/sdb

so it "looks" like it's at /dev/sdb (where my USB flash drives usually show up). So if I try to mount it as usual it doesn't work:

Code:

> mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /mnt/flash
mount: special device /dev/sdb1 does not exist

So, I try to see the partitions on the disk using fdisk but that fails and even fsck can't seem to open it:

Code:

> /sbin/fdisk -l /dev/sdb
(no output, just a blank line)

> /sbin/fdisk /dev/sdb
Unable to open /dev/sdb

> /sbin/fsck.msdos /dev/sdb
dosfsck 2.11, 12 Mar 2005, FAT32, LFN
open /dev/sdb:No such device or address

Does anyone have any suggestions?

business_kid · 12-23-2009, 01:39 PM

'Device offlined' would suggest it's a dodgy connection, more than anything. There's no fsck done while mounting, if it figures it out it goes online. The usual error there is 'rejecting i/o to dead device' Perhaps use an extension cable or put something under it to take it's weight. Squeeze the plug closed a little if it's spread out.

fdisk needs root to do anything. 'mount /dev/sdb /somewhere' might just do it. It doesn't seem partitioned.

dh4 · 12-23-2009, 03:37 PM

I tried doing a 'mount /dev/sdb /mnt/flash' assuming that there was no partition table (I have an mp3 player like that) but that didn't do anything either. I'm assuming that the drive is corrupted because when I plug the drive into a WinXP box it brings it to it's knees and freezes up everything (reboot required). So it seems that something is "bad" with that drive. I have actually recovered a corrupted flash drive before using a procedure similar to this but even this didn't work because the command 'dd if=/dev/sdb of=/tmp/r1 bs=512' threw an error saying that /dev/sdb couldn't be found.

business_kid · 12-24-2009, 04:40 AM

Is there a /mnt/flash directory? try
mnt /dev/sdb /mnt/tmp - that should exist in slackware.
You're right, the drive sounds knackered. But the real killer here is overcurrent errors in the logs. Then that usb port gets switched off, and it's time to reach for the bin. I spent a long time doing hardware repairs. There were two basic rules Both broken surprisingly often)
1. If it works, don't fix it!
2. If it's not worth it, don't fix it!

Flash drives are cheap. Rule no. 2 may apply.

dh4 · 12-25-2009, 09:51 AM

Yup, I agree. Flash drives are cheap. Unless they contain photos of your newborn daughter ... then it's not really the price of the drive that matters.

I'm a Linux sys admin so all the noob questions are covered (did stuff as root and mount dir exists, etc).

Thanks for the suggestions. I figured the drive was toast but thought I would put it out there.