For about a year I have seen this issue during boot-up on Slackware, openSUSE, freeBSD, even windoze 7 reports issues in device manager.

This is a partial of dmesg:

sr 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr1
sr 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 5
hub 2-0:1.0: Cannot enable port 6. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
hub 2-0:1.0: Cannot enable port 6. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
hub 2-0:1.0: Cannot enable port 6. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
hub 2-0:1.0: Cannot enable port 6. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
hub 2-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 6
EXT3-fs (sdb2): using internal journal

I am unsure what is connected to port 6. I do suspect however that it is /dev/sdb

My reason for suspecting this is because I have been losing SATA ports on my MB for the past few weeks. I have 4 SATA controllers on the MB, first, SATA 1 died. Then today, SATA 3 died. SATA 1 was connected to /dev/sda and SATA 3 was connected to my other HDD /dev/sdb so I do not think this is a HDD issue. I have swapped out SATA cables, but that has not done anything to help. Today while fsck was running on /dev/sdb2 during bootup, the message: 'hub 2-0:1.0: Cannot enable port 6. Maybe the USB cable is bad?' kept appearing.

I am assuming this either means the HDD is failing or it is something to do with SATA controllers on the MB? But how can I tell? I have already lost two SATA controllers. I cannot really afford to lose anymore.

I need help.

Thanks

To quote Lady Bracknell (Sort of)
'To lose one sata controller is unfortunate; to lose two sounds like carelessness!'

It strikes me you may have a rogue disk drive consuming too much current, or a dodgy power supply. It should record itself losing the device, and finding it again in /var/log/messages. I would run a backup and fast.

The other weird thing is that it can and will switch off power to a port if the port is overloaded, but your output will be different.

Solve the sata controller issue, and let the port go to hell for the moment.

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Just lost my main HDD yesterday and the SATA ports seem to be working again. I guess that drive was the issue not the SATA ports.

But I am still getting the: hub 2-0:1.0: Cannot enable port 6. Maybe the USB cable is bad?

I guess the SATA issue was/is separate from this hub error.

I presume you have changed the cable before posting here, haven't you?. . . . HAVEN'T YOU!?

There could be a rogue power supply at the bottom of this. If the box cannot enable port 6, whatever you have plugged into port 6 won't be working - ever thought of checking that? What's not working?

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Apparently you did not read my initial post business_kid so I will restate it again. I have swapped out cables but that had no effect. I have also switched the drives so they sit on different SATA controllers, that did not resolve the issue either.

I do not know how to determine which is port 6. If knew that, I would not have come in here asking for help.

And as to your rather patronizing question of 'what isn't working and have I ever thought of it.' Everything is working. All my peripherals work and have never had any problems. As I have said, I am constantly getting this error, I am not sure where it is, or how I can track it down, or if it could be a potentially serious issue for me in the future (i.e. something is about to break and fail for good bringing the system down).

Please read before you post, and please also if you want to help, do not patronize me.