USB memory stick
 

Im having a problem with my Toshiba Satellite Pro A60 laptop. This doesnt seem to be laptop specific as I have tried it with another Toshiba Satellite 1130-Z25.

When connecting my memory stick to a machine with Ubuntu installed an icon is displayed on the desktop, I can then double click it and the items displayed on the memory stick are displayed.

If, however I wish to write something to the memory stick I can drag and drop a file onto it (the same is observed using a terminal and cp) and the file is then displayed.

If I plug the memory stick into another computer - windows or linux the file is not displayed on the memory stick!

This specific memory stick has two icons, one for a small 1.44mb partition showing utilities and another one for the rest of the 1gb.

This problem has also occurred with other memory sticks.

Thanks!

Details are:
Dmesg:
[4296199.668000] USB Mass Storage support registered.
[4296204.667000] Vendor: Model: USB DISK Pro Rev: PMAP
[4296204.667000] Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 00
[4296204.671000] Vendor: Model: USB DISK Pro Rev: PMAP
[4296204.671000] Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 00
[4296204.681000] usb-storage: device scan complete
[4296205.941000] SCSI device sda: 2003968 512-byte hdwr sectors (1026 MB)
[4296205.941000] sda: Write Protect is off
[4296205.941000] sda: Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
[4296205.941000] sda: assuming drive cache: write through
[4296205.947000] SCSI device sda: 2003968 512-byte hdwr sectors (1026 MB)
[4296205.947000] sda: Write Protect is off
[4296205.947000] sda: Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
[4296205.947000] sda: assuming drive cache: write through
[4296205.947000] /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: p1
[4296205.950000] Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
[4296205.952000] SCSI device sdb: 2880 512-byte hdwr sectors (1 MB)
[4296205.952000] sdb: Write Protect is off
[4296205.952000] sdb: Mode Sense: 23 94 00 00
[4296205.952000] sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
[4296205.958000] SCSI device sdb: 2880 512-byte hdwr sectors (1 MB)
[4296205.959000] sdb: Write Protect is off
[4296205.959000] sdb: Mode Sense: 23 94 00 00
[4296205.959000] sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
[4296205.959000] /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun1: unknown partition table
[4296205.962000] Attached scsi removable disk sdb at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 1
[4296206.332000] FAT: utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!
[4296207.580000] FAT: utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!

Just a few ideas off the top of my head:

Are you sure you're unmounting the device before removing it? Files added will not be registered with the filesystem unless you do so. If the files can be read by the original machine when the device has been removed / re-inserted, you can probably discount this possibility.

Two partitions on the device is unusual. Perhaps make it one?

If the device is setup to use synchronised writes, maybe it has been worn out by excessive write operations.

The message: FAT: "utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems": could this be confusing the other machines?

The new USB sticks quite often come with 2 partitions where one is there to set security for one part of the partition.
These security partitions are set up for MS products, giving you the option to set a password and the files on that partition are then encrypted. One of my new sticks was using the NTFS file system which could not be changed.
Check on the manufacturers Website.

First you have to be sure you are unmounting properly the memory stick before removing with 'umount /dev/sda1' and 'umount /dev/sdb1' (notice you have two partitions in your stick). You must be known that linux uses buffer system memory to be faster in the files transaction processes, and usually write the file just before unmounting the target device to write on.

Second, sometimes the kernel version isn't able to write on some kinds of sticks, depending on the manufacturer. Post your kernel version in order to help you more actively. The FAT messages doesn't have any influence in your problem

Regards

Are you sure it isn't /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2? I thought the numbers were partitions, while letters represent completely different drives.

As I can see in your dmesg output seems not to be as you are saying. Post the results.

Regards