I'm having trouble trying to read/write from my usb stick. (128 meg) I've recently started using linux knowing absolutely nothing so bare with me if im a little slow to grasp some things

I've read similiar posts about usb storage but none have seemed to help me. I'm running slackware 10.1, and everything works (mouse,sound,network,video,reading off windows drive) except for mounting the usb stick.

Heres what i get with #lsusb

Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 045e:0047 Microsoft Corp.
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

It can pick up my usb mouse fine, and dmesg shows some other usb activity but it sais something about usb.c not accepting new address = 4 (error=- 71) ???

Is there some sort of installation process which i need to do before i can mount the usb? Currently i have no idea on what to do.

thanks in advance.

As root, type fdisk -l with your memory stick plugged in. If it has been recognised, it should be shown in the output as a SCSI device like sda1, sda2 etc.

This assumes you're using a stock 2.4.* kernel. I currently have two Slack 9.1 setups, both of which can detect my USB memory doobries without problems, as all the necessary kernel bits and bobs are present by default.

Assuming the device is recognised, you should be able to mount it. I add an entry to /etc/fstab to simplify the mounting procedure, though I understand this isn't strictly necessary. I'm not at a Linux box at present so I can't give you the exact details.

This is a line from my /etc/fstab
I mount the memory stick with

mount /mnt/usb

Andres V.

why don't you try narrowing down any problem by cutting fstab out of the loop by running this from the command line with your drive plugged in:

(first make sure you have created the /mnt/usb directory and given access: mkdir /mnt/usb, then chmod -R 777 /mnt/usb [that isn't the most secure way to do it but it works])

mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb


then "cd" to the mnt/usb directory and see if the files on your usb drive exist there with "ls"
if any of this outputs any errors let us know.

you can try replacing /dev/sda1 above with /dev/sda2

i tried fdisk -l with the stick plugged in and there is no reference to any sda, sda1 or sda2 in it.

and i get 'invalid block device' after making the dir /mnt/usb and trying to mount it there.

Unplug your usb disk. Make sure you have the usb-storage module loaded ('modprobe usb-storage'). Depending on your system, the disk will register on a different device. On my desktop 3 of mine register on sda and another on sda1. On my laptop three register on sdb and the the other one on sdb1. Therefore; you cannot always use the same fstab line(s) as other people.

Plug in your usb disk then type 'tail /var/log/messages'. There should be a few lines at the end saying a new device was registered and what /dev it was assigned to. If it doesn't say which device it was assigned to, by process of elimination try this:Just stop when you find one that works, then add a line to your fstab. Just remember that the device name may be different if you use a different usb disk. I have the following lines in my fstab:I know which ones use sdb and which one uses sdb1 and mount accordingly. Also, if you change disks, you may need to unload usb-storage ('modprobe -r usb-storage') then reload it to reset it.
ta0kira

PS If you use the same mount point for more than one device, mount using the device name; not the mount point.

PPS When trying to figure out (by process of elimination) what device it is on, you can type 'tail /var/log/messages' and it will say why it was not mounted. This is how I found out one of my usb disks was on a different device; I did 'mount /dev/sdb' and the message log basically said that it wasn't on sdb; it was on sdb1. Doesn't always work, but sometimes.

thank you very much ta0kira it worked

it was on sda1.

This also worked for my digital camera. /var/log/messages told me it was on sdc1, and it was a vfat format as well.
ta0kira

Sometimes it's /dev/uba1 instead of /dev/sda1.
Eg, on Slackware 10.1 with kernel 2.6.10.
But in 2.6.11.9 it's /dev/sda1 again.


gargamel