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Cannot mount thumb drive

Running Slackware 10.2 with 2.4 kernel on a very new machine.

I have usb slots on the front of my machine and I have a new Lexmar 1GB thumb drive.

I am unable to mount it:

Code:

mount -t vfat /dev/sda4 /mnt/t

Code:

mount: /dev/sda4 is not a valid block device

I have changed /etc/fstab entry from /sda4 to /sda2 to /sda in order to try and get it to work, but nothing.

I have even rebooted to, but no dice...I did this because I can plug the thumbdrive in at work on on XP machine at it works fine.

I googled and saw that some people have reformated the thumbdrive on XP in order to get it to work on Linux...?

Now I did check dmesg, and here is the output

Code:

hub.c: new USB device 00:02.2-7, assigned address 4

usb.c: USB device not accepting new address=4 (error=-71)

hub.c: new USB device 00:02.2-7, assigned address 5

usb.c: USB device not accepting new address=5 (error=-71)

Any ideas on what is going on?

those lines in dmesg arent what your looking for, your looking for something like:

Code:

usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2

usb 3-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices

usb-storage: device found at 2

usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning

  Vendor: SIMPTECH  Model: USB DRIVE        Rev: 1.12

  Type:  Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 01 CCS

 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0

usb-storage: device scan complete

SCSI device sda: 503808 512-byte hdwr sectors (258 MB)

sda: Write Protect is off

sda: Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00

sda: assuming drive cache: write through

SCSI device sda: 503808 512-byte hdwr sectors (258 MB)

sda: Write Protect is off

sda: Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00

sda: assuming drive cache: write through

 sda: sda1

sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sda

I have a new Kingston 1GB drive which was not recognised by Slackware or Ubuntu.
I reformatted as FAT32 on Windows and now all is well. FAT16 would probably have worked as well. There seems to be some variation in "formatting", volume labelling and boot sector setting of these flash drives that can cause problems.

you probably don't have to format it in windows, but you might need to format it with dos support. The -D switch does it in sfdisk, just read the man page to whichever utility you prefer and I'm sure they're will be a similar option.

regards,
...drkstr

Thanks everyone for the help.

How would I format the thumbdrive if I can't mount it under Linux?

I am at work and reformatted with WinXP using FAT32. When I get home I will try to mount and see what happens.

thank again

Try to find out what the thumbdrive is called by running

Code:

fdisk -l

and examining the output.
Then, mount it using the command

Code:

mount -t vfat /dev/sd?? /mnt/floppy

or something alike.
Formating is not related to being able to mount the drive's partition. Infact, it could be there is no partitionon that drive that you can mount, in which case you'll have to create the partition using (c)fdisk and then format that using mkdosfs

Eric

Quote:

Originally Posted by JockVSJock

I am by no means a linux guru, but to mount my drive (which works fine going from linux to windows) is:

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb

I did make a directory called "usb" specfically to mount my usb drive to, but any mount point should work.

In my case I could see messages about sda and sda1 in messages and syslog.
The mount -t auto (or vfat) /dev/sda1 mnt/usb did not work, but worked for other keydrives.
There is something odd about the formatting of certain usb drives.

Update:

At work I reformated the thumbdrive with FAT32. Once I got home I plugged it in and tried to mount it and got the same error.

The weird thing. Just this week I was using the thumbdrive and was able to mount/unmount without any problems...I haven't updated my system or done anything different, so I wonder what has happened or changed to cause my thumbdrive to become unmountable...?

thanks again

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien Bob

Try to find out what the thumbdrive is called by running

Code:

fdisk -l

and examining the output.
Then, mount it using the command

Code:

mount -t vfat /dev/sd?? /mnt/floppy

Did fdisk -l on my main Slackware pc and got this output:

Code:

root@ladytron:/mnt# fdisk -l



Disk /dev/hda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System

/dev/hda1              1        124      995998+  82  Linux swap

/dev/hda2            125      30401  243200002+  83  Linux

Its not seeing the thumbdrive...

And I've tried different mountpoints under /dev, but no dice...

I might have overlooked this, but is your usb-sotrage module loaded ('lsmod' to check). If not, 'modprobe usb-storage' to load it up.

regards,
...drkstr

try seeing if its even recognized as being pluged in:

lsusb

check before you plug it in and after to look for changes.

Ok here is the output from my lsmod

Code:



lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by    Not tainted

snd-pcm-oss            36736  0  (unused)

snd-mixer-oss          12376  0  [snd-pcm-oss]

keybdev                1892  0  (unused)

mousedev                4020  0  (unused)

hid                    20868  0  (unused)

input                  3200  0  [keybdev mousedev hid]

usb-ohci              19368  0  (unused)

ehci-hcd              17516  0  (unused)

forcedeth              9868  0  (unused)

snd-intel8x0          18304  0

snd-ac97-codec        58556  0  [snd-intel8x0]

snd-pcm                54344  0  [snd-pcm-oss snd-intel8x0 snd-ac97-codec]

snd-timer              13764  0  [snd-pcm]

snd                    32772  0  [snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-intel8x0 snd-ac97-codec snd-pcm snd-timer]

soundcore              3396  4  [snd]

snd-page-alloc          4712  0  [snd-mixer-oss snd-intel8x0 snd-pcm snd-timer snd]

sata_nv                2672  0  (unused)

libata                28340  0  [sata_nv]

natsemi                15680  1

crc32                  2880  0  [natsemi]

ide-scsi                9392  0

usb-storage            62432  0  (unused)

usbcore                59148  1  [hid usb-ohci ehci-hcd usb-storage]

lp                      6404  0

parport_pc            15044  1

parport                22824  1  [lp parport_pc]

I have to do the following command as root

Code:

lsusb

Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 003 Device 002: ID 051d:0002 American Power Conversion Back-UPS Pro 500/1000/1500

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Why isn't it picking up the usb ports on the front of the computer?

I think there is something weird going on with dmesg, check it out

Code:



Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...

usb.c: registered new driver usb-storage

USB Mass Storage support registered.

Then...

Code:



usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1

PCI: cache line size of 64 is not supported by device 00:02.2

ehci_hcd 00:02.2: USB 2.0 enabled, EHCI 1.00, driver 2003-Dec-29/2.4

hub.c: USB hub found

hub.c: 8 ports detected

PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:02.1 to 64

usb-ohci.c: USB OHCI at membase 0xe0a26000, IRQ 9

usb-ohci.c: usb-00:02.1, PCI device 10de:00e7 (nVidia Corporation)

usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2

hub.c: USB hub found

hub.c: 4 ports detected

PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:02.0 to 64

usb-ohci.c: USB OHCI at membase 0xe0a28000, IRQ 3

usb-ohci.c: usb-00:02.0, PCI device 10de:00e7 (nVidia Corporation)

usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3

hub.c: USB hub found

hub.c: 4 ports detected

and then this...

Code:



uhci.c: USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v1.1

usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 18:53:41 Jun  5 2005

usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled

usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver

I only have 6 usb ports, 2 on the front and 4 on the back.

Could there be a problem with the IRQs? I checked under /proc, but don't seem to get any good information...

thanks

***BUMP***

Thinking about this the other day...

I have Slackware 10.2 on a desktop and my laptop. My USB thumb drive loads find on the laptop, but doesn't on the desktop.

Would it be worth it to compare files between the two, like the hotplug and udev to see what is different and what is the same and modify the desktop's files?

thanks

I don't think that would help, simply because so much has changed between 10.2 and 11.0 when it comes to udev and hotplug. I'm not sure it is comparable.

Does your thumbdrive have a little status light? Does it turn on? It might be some physical connection issue, the front ports might be bad.