How to mount a Sony Memory Stick on Mandrake 10.0 ?
 

Hi friends,

I have recently shifted from Windows to Linux. I need some help.

1) Can someone help me in mounting a Sony Memory Stick on Mandrake 10.0 ?

2) Once installed, this memory stick should be usable on both Windows M/c and Linux m/c. Is that possible ?

Thanks
Atul

just to add some more information:

I ran the following command (as root)

******************************************************************
[root@localhost root]# cat /proc/scsi/scsi
Attached devices:
[root@localhost root]#
******************************************************************

Does this give some clue of what's wrong here ?

Thanks
Atul

Hi,

MDK should automount your memory stick.

If not follow the following rule, you should mount it by yourself :

first, open a terminal :

su ( you should be root to do that )
**** ( your root password )

mkdir /mnt/sony ( to create a new file "sony" or whatever you want )

by now if you use Konqueror and go to /mnt you should have a new file named "sony"

return to the terminal, and mount your devise:

mount /dev/sda /mnt/sony

( you will then mount your device /dev/sda to your mount point /mnt/sony )


dev/sda can be different in your case (sda1 or sdb...) the mandrake control center can help here... your device is probably detected but not mounted !!

also note the exact command :

mount*/dev/sda*/mnt/sony ( * being a space )

hi

Thanks for the reply. I did exactly as you mentioned, but no luck. This is what is happening

[root@localhost mnt]# mount /dev/sda /mnt/sonymemstick
mount: special device /dev/sda does not exist

After this I tried,
[root@localhost mnt]# mount /dev/hde2 /mnt/sonymemstick
mount: /dev/hde2 is not a valid block device

After this I tried,
[root@localhost mnt]# mount /dev/hde3 /mnt/sonymemstick
mount: block device /dev/hde3 is write-protected, mounting read-only
mount: No medium found

After this I tried,
[root@localhost mnt]# mount /dev/hde4 /mnt/sonymemstick
mount: block device /dev/hde4 is write-protected, mounting read-only
mount: No medium found

What's next ?

Thanks
Atul

Hi, your device is probably sda or sda1 or sda2 or sdb /sdc ...

cannot be hde.

Go to mdk control center and advise if some device is detected, even unknown.

My own device was sda1 .

You can also try to plug the device before the booting process, and use command line dmesg to get information ( as root only )

Good luck

What is in your dmesg output? Is the stick recognized as usb-mass storage device?
Are the correct modules loaded when you insert the stick (usbcore,usb-storage)
Is the stick recognized as file system? (output of 'fdisk -l')

Actually more importantly

HOW does the memory stick interface to your computer?

Are you using an external USB reader?

An internal reader?

etc.

I have one and Mandrake finds it.
It shows up on my desktop.
I don't do anything special with it.
It's a Lexar usb 256 stick

Yes but this is beside the point...

Mandrake/Linux must recognize the device to which the stick is inserted.

It is likely that his reader is not being recognized.

The poster has not described it, nor posted the output from dmesg so we can see.

This limits us to guessing...

Hi

I agree that the system should atleast identify it an available device/drive/media/hardware, which it is not doing currently.

Now, this memory stick was being used on a Windows Machine before. Is there some special formatting technique that needs to be used such that Mandrake 10.0 starts identifying this device ?

I even rebooted the system with memory stick inside the Slot. For your records, my machine is a VAIO PCG-505JS

Thanks,
Atul

No nothing "special" has to be done if the kernel supports your hardware.

That is the question.

Since the memory stick reader built into your Sony, is considered by Sony as a proprietary device, for which they DO NOT release the specs, kernel support is problematic.

Blame Sony's policies for this, not Linux...

http://www.ma.umist.ac.uk/bl/vaio/Li...ny_v505cp.html
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/sony.html

BTW: I'm in the same boat with my reader on my ZD7000

No problem mounting a memory stick.

Put the stick in a usb port (example her is in usb0)
right click create new - device -MO device click

edit the blue title MO Device eg stick

click on device

select the stick which should be listed as a removable disk
(/mnt/removable)

for example/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part
1

click on OK

your ikon should appear on screen

clicking on the ikon should display the contents in a k window

:Pengy: :Pengy: :Pengy:

guys,

that create a new device option would work only if the system identifies this mem-stick as a valid drive which it is not currently.

Can I check some config file to validate whether or not the mem-stick is identified by my system ? When this machine was on Windows , which was laast week, this mem-stick was being used on this machine. Now either I remove the mem-stick or insert it, the small bulb in the slot is not getting lighted, the way it used to be earlier on Windows, so I am sure the system is taking this as a valid drive

thanks
atul

Yeah, basically the output of dmesg would display any identified devices.

Also lsdev, lspci and lsmod would display pertitnent information as well as the MCC.

If a device has a loaded module in the MCC then it's been recognized and configured.

As I posted the on board Sony reader has no drivers for it under Linux thanks to Sony.

Hi

I looked the Hardware Configuration from Mandrake and in the detected Hardware list, there is an entry for Memory Stick Controller. Following is the information on it:

**********************************************************
Vendor: ‎Sony Corporation

Bus: ‎PCI

Bus identification: ‎104d:808a:104d:8085

Location on the bus: ‎0:d:0

Description: ‎Memory Stick Controller

Module: ‎unknown

Media class: ‎MEMORY_FLASH
**********************************************************

Can someone help now ?

Regards
Atul

Not sure if this is the same thing as you are talking about but we use a sony memory stick in our sony camera. Is this what you are talking about?

If it is we just plug the camera into a usb port and an icon appears on the desktop. We then just click on the icon to display the contents of the stick in the camera.

It doesn't sound as though that is happening for you though.

Even if it is not a camera memory stick, if it plugs into a usb port the principle should be the same.

Mandrake uses magicdev to automatically recognise devices like that so something is obviously not right.

Does it identify anything that is plugged into the usb ports or is it just the memory stick?

hi jk

thanks for the reply,

actually I have a Sony VAIO PCG-Z505JS machine. It has an in-built Memstick Slot which I was using quite comfortably on this machine (in my Windows days). Ever since i have switched to Mandrake 10.0, I am not able to use it. Being a newbee adds more complexity.

Anyways, this is not attached to the USB. Its in-built . Please let me know if you can help in this ?


Thanks
Atul

Ahhhhhhhhhh ok.

I looked at your previous post where you said you found it listed in the hardware section.

It says Module: Unknown

This is the module of the linux kernel that handles the device. It is telling you that it doesn't have or know of one.

You probably have to point it to the right device as suggested before by others in previous posts. e.g. /dev/blah blah blah

I gather you are using the download edition of mandrake 10.0?

There is a site you can go to called "linuxlaptops" that has reviews of heaps of laptops with various flavours of linux installed. You will probably find yours on there and would probably be your best way of finding out whether your memory sick is usable on linux.

Hope this helped

Cheers:)

Found this for you, it has a section on memory cards on sony VAIO

http://sauvy.ined.fr/~brouard/sony/

Looks like there is some hope

I also found this line from someone who reckons their memory card works perfectly. Not from your exact model but still

/dev/sda1 /mnt/memory_card auto user,iocharset=iso8859-1,kudzu,codepage=850,noauto,exec 0 0

All these can be found in the linuxlaptop reviews so as i said before just go have a look and see what you can turn up