help mounting ipod shuffle
 

I"m running Debian sarge, kernel 2.6.8. Whenever I try to mount my ipod shuffle I get an error message that says:
mount: /dev/sda1 is not a valid block device

I'm using the following command:
mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/ipod

I'm able to mount my PNY thumbdrive just fine using the same command. anyone have any ideas?

thanks

Several possibilities:

For the ipods, appraently you want to mount the 3rd partition (ie sda3). This is where the music is.

mount -t vfat /dev/sda3 /mnt/ipod (Note: I changed sda1 to sda3)

Are you sure it is on sda, sometimes it is different even if the pen drive is sda? Insert the ipod and then type dmesg at the command line. The last few lines should say something about SCSI emulation and about a SCSI device. The line "Attached SCSI removable disk sda" will tell you where it is. It might say sda or sdb. Try mounting that point instead.

For more info this page appears useful:

http://www.cavecanen.org/linux/ipod/

"dmesg" gives the following output after I plug in my pny thumbdrive:

usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using address 2
usb 1-1: device not accepting address 2, error -71
usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using address 3
SCSI subsystem initialized
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi0 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Vendor: 64MB Model: HardDrive Rev: 1.88
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
USB Mass Storage device found at 3
usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
sda: Unit Not Ready, sense:
Current : sense key Unit Attention
Additional sense: Not ready to ready change, medium may have changed
SCSI device sda: 128000 512-byte hdwr sectors (66 MB)
sda: assuming Write Enabled
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: p1
Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
usb 1-1: USB disconnect, address 3

When I plug in my ipod shuffle it looks like no changes are made when i enter the dmesg command. Does that mean I don't have the right driver installed for the shuffle? I'm totally lost...

It might still work. Did you try the mount command I suggested with sda3? Did you try looking at the webpage I suggested? Those would be my first suggestions.

Yes, I've tried sda3 but I'm still getting the "mount: /dev/sda2 is not a valid block device" error message.
I'm still looking for a fix.

I think the problem comes from debian not seeing the shuffle at all. Which is strange because it recongizes my pny thumbdrive just fine. The
"cat /proc/bus/usb/devices | grep -i ipod" command doesnt give any output whatsoever.

Interesting. I really don't know then. The only other thing it might be is if it is a Mac ipod. Apparently the drives are a little different and have to be mounted differently if its a Mac ipod (not vfat, but HFS and I don't know the mount command for that). It must be possible, good luck.

I've added music to it with my windows box so it's formatted with vfat. Thanks for the replies though.

I think the problem lies in the fact that your shuffle is not sda. Just try mounting it with 'mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /mnt/ipod' You'll probably receive a message saying "mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda1,
or too many mounted file systems"

This means that your shuffle is /dev/sdb, but the partition is not the number one. Try mount -t vfat /dev/sdb2 /mnt/ipod or mount -t vfat /dev/sdb3 /mnt/ipod

If it still doesn't work, try /dev/sdc (you can read the list of plugged device by typing 'fdisk -l')

When I try "mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /mnt/ipod" or sdb2, sdb3, sdc1, sdc2 I receive the same error message as before.

mount: /dev/sdb1 is not a valid block device

"fdisk -l" gives this output:
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 851 6835626 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 852 3722 23061307+ 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 852 976 1004031 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda6 977 3722 22057213+ 83 Linux

Is the kernel not recognizing the shuffle at all?

i've got it working now. I upgraded to a usb 2.0 card.

I am having sort of the same problem. I have an ipod shuffle and gtkpod. Every time I try to mount the ipod it has that the device doesn't exist.
When I try (within gtkpod)

Read iTunesDB

I get

/mnt/ipod/iPod_Control/iTunes/iTunesDB' does not exist. Import aborted.

And when I type 'dmesg' I get a very long message ending with:

usb 2-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
usb 2-1: configuration #1 chosen from 2 choices
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi0 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 3
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
Vendor: Apple Model: iPod Rev: 2.70
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
SCSI device sda: 495616 2048-byte hdwr sectors (1015 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 64 00 00 08
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sda: 495616 2048-byte hdwr sectors (1015 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 64 00 00 08
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
sda: unknown partition table
Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
usb-storage: device scan complete
application firefox-bin uses obsolete OSS audio interface

I have no idea what to do and my ipod shuffle still doesn't work. (I'm kind of new at linux). Does anybody know what to do? I have FC4 and that's all I know.
Will it be easier if I format the ipod first in a windows computer?

Ampi: see

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ubu...d-shuffle.html


the weird command

mount /dev/sda on /media/ipod

seems to make the job

Thanks for the help, still it never did work properly with gtkpod. Now I have GNUpod which works much better!