Mount Problem: evice already mounted or mount point busy
 

Hi,

I am inserting a USB device and tries to create a mount point on top of it, but every time I am getting error that:
mount: /dev/hdb1 already mounted or /mnt/usb/ is busy
can you please tell me how can I do the mounting. In the same system if I insert some other USB device I can easily mount my directory on top of that mount point.

Regards,
Deb

Some additional information is required. Please, can you post the output of the following commands?

Hi colucix,

Sorry for this late reply, actually I was unable to send my reply for last two days. Anyway here are my answers to your queries:
1) sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9a9c9a9c

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 3187 25599546 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 3188 9729 52548615 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 3188 4589 11261533+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda6 4590 4713 995998+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 4714 9729 40290988+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 4016 MB, 4016046080 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 488 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xbd3947f8

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 488 3919828+ b W95 FAT32

2) mount
/dev/sda7 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
/proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.27-7-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw,mode=755)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/wipro/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=wipro)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/disk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,shortname=mixed,uid=1000,utf8,umask=077,flush)

3) df -k
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda7 39658780 9119628 28524604 25% /
tmpfs 512592 0 512592 0% /lib/init/rw
varrun 512592 108 512484 1% /var/run
varlock 512592 0 512592 0% /var/lock
udev 512592 356 512236 1% /dev
tmpfs 512592 104 512488 1% /dev/shm
lrm 512592 2000 510592 1% /lib/modules/2.6.27-7-generic/volatile
/dev/sdb1 3912168 78004 3834164 2% /media/disk

Regards,
Dev

Well.. I guess you had the USB device inserted when you tried the command above. Indeed they show a device /dev/sdb1 of 4 Gb with a VFAT filesystem already mounted under /media/disk. This is the default location where the UDEV system do automatic mount upon USB device insertion (unless the filesystem has a valid label, in which case it is mounted under /media/<label>).

Given the output above I think you don't need to manually mount the device, it is already mounted for you and you can find files under /media/disk. Looking at the output of the mount command it has been mounted in read/write mode. If you want to mount it with options different from those assigned bu UDEV, you have first to unmount the device
then mount it again. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Cheers!

Hi colucix,
Thanks a lot for your reply. Anyway I found another device which is giving me that problem, so that I can't mount it manually. Yes UDEV can mount the USB device, but I need to mount it to separate filesystem from my application which is failing.

1) fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sdb: 4020 MB, 4020240384 bytes
124 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1021 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 7688 * 512 = 3936256 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x6f20736b

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 ? 101215 249694 570754815+ 72 Unknown
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(357, 116, 40) logical=(101214, 43, 11)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(357, 32, 45) logical=(249693, 92, 51)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2 ? 21942 273767 968014120 65 Novell Netware 386
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(288, 115, 43) logical=(21941, 114, 47)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(367, 114, 50) logical=(273766, 76, 42)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb3 ? 243221 495046 968014096 79 Unknown
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(366, 32, 33) logical=(243220, 98, 30)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(357, 32, 43) logical=(495045, 59, 39)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb4 ? 375349 375356 27749+ d Unknown
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(372, 97, 50) logical=(375348, 92, 25)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(0, 10, 0) logical=(375355, 119, 33)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order

2) mount
/dev/sda7 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
/proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.27-7-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw,mode=755)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/wipro/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=wipro)
/dev/sdb on /media/disk type vfat (rw)

Regards,
Deb

Ok. You've always to umount the automatic mounted device before trying to mount it elsewhere. The error message is indeed quite clear about that (device "already mounted"). Regarding the second problem it looks like a broken partition table. Did you actually had 4 partition on this USB device, or is it just a bogus output? I'm sorry but I have no idea on how to solve this. Did the device contain some important stuff?