Hello fellow LQers!

I have a strange problem with my USB pen drive. For years I am using slackware 9.1 (kernel 2.4) and use 512MB TranscendData USB JetFlash. I can mount/unmount it without problem and it works fine, except in one situation.

The problem is that, if I copy small files from my usb drive (/dev/sda1, mounted on /mnt/flash), everything is OK. But, when I try to copy a big file, half way through I get "Input/Output error" on the device, the drive gets unmounted and then I can not mount it again unless I reboot my machine.

Anyone faced similar problem? Can somebody suggest some solution to this?

Thanks,
Atul.

are you mounting manually, do you have an entry in your /etc/fstab?

is hal mounting it?

2) do you have any cron jobs checking stuff such as tripwire?

I figured out that there is some problem indeed. Here is my dmesg log immediately after connecting the pen drive:

scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Vendor: JetFlash Model: TS512MJF2B Rev: 2.00
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Unable to get major 8 for SCSI disk
Unable to get major 8 for SCSI disk
Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
sda: Unit Not Ready, sense:
Current 00:00: sns = 70 6
ASC=28 ASCQ= 0
Raw sense data:0x70 0x00 0x06 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x0a 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x28
0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00
sda : READ CAPACITY failed.
sda : status = 1, message = 00, host = 0, driver = 08
Current sd00:00: sns = 70 6
ASC=28 ASCQ= 0
Raw sense data:0x70 0x00 0x06 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x0a 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x28
0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00
sda : block size assumed to be 512 bytes, disk size 1GB.
sda: I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 0
I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 0
ldm_validate_partition_table(): Disk read failed.
I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 0
unable to read partition table
WARNING: USB Mass Storage data integrity not assured
USB Mass Storage device found at 2
SCSI device sda: 1023744 512-byte hdwr sectors (524 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: sda1

And here is the dmesg log after I get read problems:

usb_control/bulk_msg: timeout
usb_control/bulk_msg: timeout
usb_control/bulk_msg: timeout
usb_control/bulk_msg: timeout
hub.c: USB device not accepting new address (error=-71)
usb-storage: host_reset() requested but not implemented
scsi: device set offline - command error recover failed: host 1 channel 0 id 0 lun 0
SCSI disk error : host 1 channel 0 id 0 lun 0 return code = 6050000
I/O error: dev 08:01, sector 12488
<I/O error message repeated several times>
Directory sread (sector 0x1c30) failed
I/O error: dev 08:01, sector 7216
dev = 08:01, ino = 115460
Filesystem panic (dev 08:01).
msdos_write_inode: unable to read i-node block

not a good sign, does this stick ever have to be used on a microsoft computer?

if not I am thinking you can format it to xfs, which is what I did, a journalised system that if you inadvertantly pull stick out, or there is a minor power hiccup, won't lose its data

Eventually I found a solution to this problem - the autofs! Instead of mounting/unmounting the flash drive manually, I added it to the automounter. Now there is absolutely no problem accessing huge files from the drive. Thanks to all of you for your responses and helpful tips!