I have issues with my iRiver "iFP-390T". I've had the device for many years without being able to use it (except a few times in Windows, to confirm it actually works). The problem is: I'm unable to mount the filesystem.

I have read quite a bit about it, there exists a "manager version" and a "UMS" version -- the latter is a regular mass storage device.

Mine is the UMS version, the special purpose tools to use the "manager version" tells me I don't have an iRiver-device (because mine isn't the manager version) but that a "UMS device was ignored", this, in addition to the fact that the MP3 player states "UMS 1.11" upon power-on makes me believe it is a UMS device.

My MP3 player contains a full set of MP3s, however I'm unable to mount the filesystem contained on it.

When I do "fdisk -l /dev/sdb" I get no file systems, I've tried to mount /dev/sdb1 too, to no avail (obviously this wouldn't work though when fdisk -l reports nil).

When I connect the device by USB cable dmesg shows me the following:

Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
usb-storage: device found at 4
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
Vendor: iRiver Model: iFP Mass Driver Rev: 1.00
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 00
SCSI device sdb: 512000 512-byte hdwr sectors (262 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 45 00 00 08
sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sdb: 512000 512-byte hdwr sectors (262 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 45 00 00 08
sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
sdb:
sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sdb
usb-storage: device scan complete

Any ideas?

I think you will need to update the firmware on the player, as looking online it seems like the iRivers have had some problems under Linux as mass storage devices that were addressed with updates. Assuming "UMS 1.11", you are running a pretty old version. The iRiver site lists 1.85 as the latest non-Manager firmware for your player.

This page also lists some information about getting your player working under Linux. Specifically you might want to check out the last bit about getting the player to detect properly.

Thank you for the advice, I attempted to upgrade to 1.85, I had to use Windows (Vista) to perform this.
The upgrade was successful, the device now reports version 1.85.

However when attempting to mount the device in GNU/Linux the same issue arose -- I was unable to mount it, and fdisk -l did not display any partitions defined.
Despite that fdisk -l displays no partitions, Windows is perfectly able to use the partitions (and yes, it is full of files).

Then I formatted the device (from Windows Vista), and I got this from GNU/Linux:

x86-1# fdisk -l /dev/sdb

Disk /dev/sdb: 262 MB, 262144000 bytes
9 heads, 56 sectors/track, 1015 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 504 * 512 = 258048 bytes

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

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 ? 1543921 3808821 570754815+ 72 Unknown
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(357, 116, 40) logical=(1543920, 4, 5)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(357, 32, 45) logical=(3808820, 4, 35)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2 ? 334702 4176028 968014120 65 Novell Netware 386
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(288, 115, 43) logical=(334701, 3, 51)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(367, 114, 50) logical=(4176027, 2, 42)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb3 ? 3710083 7551409 968014096 79 Unknown
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(366, 32, 33) logical=(3710082, 2, 26)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(357, 32, 43) logical=(7551408, 0, 25)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb4 ? 1 7216720 1818613248 d Unknown
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(372, 97, 50) logical=(0, 0, 1)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(0, 10, 0) logical=(7216719, 2, 8)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

I then attempted the following:

I deleted all partitions from GNU/Linux with fdisk, created a new partition with the FAT16 filesystem, then formatted it as FAT16 with mkfs.

I was able to mount it, and I could copy a file.

However, the device displays "NO FILE" when it starts up.

Despite the fact there is a file on it Windows Vista is unable to see it, and seemingly the player also.

On the iriver.com website it says you have to use the "FAT" filesystem, or the player will report that only FAT is supported. I did not receive this message.

What is "FAT" anyway? I assume it is FAT16 since nothing else was specified?

After I reformat the device in Windows, I am again presented with the same problem in GNU/Linux: fdisk -l shows me no partitions I can mount, despite that Windows Vista is able to copy and read files from the device AND that the device and play files written to it.

When I use dd to dump the entire contents of the device to my GNU/Linux computer and then use the file util to see what the header of this file is, I get:

dump: x86 boot sector, code offset 0x3c, OEM-ID "MSDOS5.0", sectors/cluster 32, root entries 512, Media descriptor 0xf8, sectors/FAT 63, heads 255, sectors 512000 (volumes > 32 MB) , serial number 0xccbecd8f, unlabeled, FAT (16 bit)

This obviously contains a FAT filesystem! Why can't I mount it?

I have of course attempted to simply mount the filesystem despite the fact fdisk tells me it isn't there.