Mandrake 9.1/IOGear ION External USB 2.0 hdd && Laptop LCD Display

Prismatic · 02-01-2004, 03:32 PM

First off, I have a IOGear ION External USB hdd and am finding myself unable to mount it. There is no visible USB device in /dev, and when occasionaly there is (dunno why but there is sometimes; might be my not-working usb mouse

) which I just took out, when I try to mount it (mount /dev/usb/???/??? /mnt/usbhdd1/ it displays an error something like this: Mount: Error: /dev/usb/???/??? is not a block device (the ???s were put in by me cuz I don't remember the exact path). Yes, the drive is turned on and plugged in. So how do I mount it?

[edit] Whoops forgot about the display. Less important, please help me with hdd first, but here we are. The display I am using (on the same laptop the hdd is connected to) isn't recognized as plug and play, and when I fiddle with the settings, the best setup I can get gives me an actual area of display much smaller than the screen itself, and windows, which came prepackaged on the laptop (no I didn't want it) , displayed on the whole screen, to the last pixel on the upper left corner. What is causing this, and how do I fix it?

kilgoretrout · 02-02-2004, 10:47 AM

Do you have any data on your usb HD? I had problems with my usb HD; mdk9.2 couldn't recognize the factory partition on the drive and when I tried to repartition using mdk's partition tools I got a complete mess. I wound up repartioning and reformatting with Acronis partition expert after which the drive worked perfectly in mandrake.

If setup properly the usb drive should be detected as /dev/sdax where "x" corresponds to the partition number. This assumes you only have one usb storage device on your system. You can check to see if your detecting the usb hd partitions by running as root in a console:

# fdisk -l /dev/sda

That should give you a printout of all the partitions on the drive. Post back your results. If properly detected, you can setup an entry for the drive in fstab.

As for your screen problems, what is the native resolution for the LCD in windows and what resolution do you have it setup for in linux?

Prismatic · 02-02-2004, 09:25 PM

# fdisk -l /dev/sda yielded nothing, just a fresh root prompt. I have looked around for tutorials, and #mount /dev/sdax /mnt/usbhd returns 'mount: special device /dev/sdax does not exist' (I tried replacing x with all #s from 0-6). The external harddrive is really just a normal hdd in an external case; I installed Mandrake 9.1 on it (with the erase entire disk installation option) so I assume FS type is not a problem. And yes, I have data I don't want to lose on that drive. As to the native resolution on the laptop screen, I think the native was 1024*768 or 1280*1024; I am currently running it on 1280*1024 with only ~3cm black borders on left and righant and ~1cm on top and bottom. I noticed windows was able to fill the entire screen at any resolution.

[edit (again!)] I tried #fdisk -l /dev/hda and got my partition tables for hda, and then tried #fdisk -l /dev/aldfkh (just a random string to test) and again got nothing but another prompt.

kilgoretrout · 02-02-2004, 10:38 PM

A few suggestions. Try looking in mandrake control center>Mountpoints>Diskdrake and see if the external hard drive is listed(probably not).

You may not have the necessary scsi and usb modules loaded for this device. As root, run:

# lsmod

and post the output. I can compare it with mine. Also, post your /etc/modules.conf file. This is the configuration file that controlls the loading of driver modules.

Prismatic · 02-03-2004, 08:02 PM

lsmod output:

Code:

Module                  Size  Used by    Not tainted
isofs                  27988   0  (autoclean)
zlib_inflate           21156   0  (autoclean) [isofs]
udf                    90464   0  (autoclean)
appletalk              25700   0  (autoclean)
ipx                    21252   0  (autoclean)
sg                     34636   0  (autoclean) (unused)
st                     29488   0  (autoclean) (unused)
sr_mod                 16920   0  (autoclean) (unused)
sd_mod                 13100   0  (autoclean) (unused)
scsi_mod              103284   4  (autoclean) [sg st sr_mod sd_mod]
ide-cd                 33856   0  (autoclean)
cdrom                  31648   0  (autoclean) [sr_mod ide-cd]
i810_rng                3680   0  (unused)
i810-tco                4368   0  (unused)
snd-pcm-oss            43556   0
snd-mixer-oss          14488   0  [snd-pcm-oss]
snd-intel8x0           21988   4
snd-ac97-codec         40160   0  [snd-intel8x0]
snd-pcm                77536   0  [snd-pcm-oss snd-intel8x0]
snd-timer              18376   0  [snd-pcm]
snd-mpu401-uart         4396   0  [snd-intel8x0]
snd-rawmidi            17600   0  [snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-seq-device          5832   0  [snd-rawmidi]
snd                    40868   4  [snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-intel8x0 snd-ac97-codec snd-pcm snd-timer snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device]
soundcore               6276   0  [snd]
snd-page-alloc          7732   0  [snd-intel8x0 snd-pcm]
ds                      8456   2
yenta_socket           13056   2
pcmcia_core            57184   0  [ds yenta_socket]
af_packet              14952   1  (autoclean)
floppy                 55132   0
3c59x                  29584   1  (autoclean)
ohci1394               19048   0  (unused)
ieee1394               45900   0  [ohci1394]
nls_iso8859-1           3516   1  (autoclean)
ntfs                   76812   1  (autoclean)
supermount             15296   2  (autoclean)
usb-uhci               24652   0  (unused)
usbcore                72992   1  [usb-uhci]
rtc                     8060   0  (autoclean)
ext3                   59916   2
jbd                    38972   2  [ext3]

/etc/modules.conf:

Code:

alias eth0 3c59x
alias sound-slot-0 i810_audio
probeall usb-interface usb-uhci
alias ieee1394-controller ohci1394
above snd-intel8x0 snd-pcm-oss

The USB hdd is not listed in Diskdrake. Thanks for helping! Hope we work this out...

kilgoretrout · 02-03-2004, 11:12 PM

Are you using a standard mandrake kernel?

Reason I asked is that your not loading the usb-storage module which is undoubtedly why you can't get your external hard drive working. Also, do you have USB2.0? Your not loading that module either(ehci-hcd). I'm wondering if you have this stuff compiled in your kernel.

Here's my lsmod output:

Module Size Used by Tainted: P
Mvnetd 9988 1 (unused)
Mvnet 57264 0 [Mvnetd]
Mvnetint 320 0 (unused)
Mvw 4756 0 (unused)
Mvmouse 840 0 (unused)
Mvkbd 960 0 (unused)
Mvgic 3480 0 (unused)
Mvdsp 1040 0 (unused)
Mserial 6740 0 (unused)
Mmpip 7476 0 (unused)
Mmerge 138388 0 [Mvnetd Mvnet Mvw Mvmouse Mvkbd Mvgic Mvdsp Mserial Mmpip]
mki-adapter 28500 0 [Mvnetd Mvnet Mvnetint Mvw Mvmouse Mvkbd Mvgic Mvdsp Mserial Mmpip Mmerge]
ide-floppy 16128 0 (autoclean)
ide-tape 48816 0 (autoclean)
parport_pc 25544 1 (autoclean)
lp 8160 1 (autoclean)
parport 34472 1 (autoclean) [parport_pc lp]
agpgart 48292 3 (autoclean)
nvidia 2124800 6 (autoclean)
es1371 27788 1
ac97_codec 15828 0 [es1371]
soundcore 6340 0 [es1371]
gameport 3268 0 [es1371]
nfsd 75280 8 (autoclean)
af_packet 14856 1 (autoclean)
smsc47m1 5532 0 (unused)
eeprom 4628 0 (unused)
adm1025 6228 0 (unused)
i2c-proc 8116 0 [smsc47m1 eeprom adm1025]
i2c-isa 1292 0 (unused)
i2c-i801 5464 0 (unused)
i2c-core 20484 0 [smsc47m1 eeprom adm1025 i2c-proc i2c-isa i2c-i801]
floppy 55932 0
8139too 17384 1 (autoclean)
mii 3864 0 (autoclean) [8139too]
nls_iso8859-1 3484 5 (autoclean)
nls_cp850 4284 5 (autoclean)
vfat 11820 5 (autoclean)
fat 38040 0 (autoclean) [vfat]
sr_mod 19384 0
ide-cd 33956 0
cdrom 32608 0 [sr_mod ide-cd]
ide-scsi 11376 0
sd_mod 13804 0
scsimon 9312 0 (unused)
usb-storage 91616 0
scsi_mod 106176 5 [sr_mod ide-scsi sd_mod scsimon usb-storage]
ehci-hcd 19212 0 (unused)
usb-uhci 25136 0 (unused)
usbcore 74988 1 [usb-storage ehci-hcd usb-uhci]
rtc 9004 0 (autoclean)
reiserfs 198004 4

Let's try loading the usb-storage module manually. As root run:

# modprobe usb-storage

See if it will load. If you get an error message of no module found, then your kernel was not copiled with this module. If it loads, try the fdisk -l /dev/sda thing again. You may have to disconnect it then reconnect to get it detected but it should be found with this module loaded.

Prismatic · 02-06-2004, 08:51 PM

# modprobe usb-storage returned nothing, and another run of lsmod listed it as running afterwards, though fdisk -l /dev/sda still returns nothing. I'll restart and see if that fixes it...

kilgoretrout · 02-09-2004, 12:34 AM

If you reboot, you'll have to modprobe again to load the module. Try shutting down, disconnect the drive and then reboot and modprobe. Then reconnect the drive and do the fdisk thing.

Prismatic · 02-09-2004, 08:17 PM

Hmm... I'm compiling something at the moment, then gotta do some homework, then absolutley HAVE to play some games (Legends! http://www.legendsthegame.com/), but I'll probably get around to it.