i am unable to mount my new 100GB USB hard disk on my Debian Lenny box. However, i could mount this hard disk on the other Debian Lenny box without any problem. Basically, when i connect my USB hard disk to the system, a continuous beep sound is coming. pls help me in resolving the problem.

Hi dmsreddy, Welcome to lq. This continuous beep, is this a motherboard error, or post code? Is this happening after you've booted and then plug in the device, or is the device plugged in during boot? Does the system remain stable or is this beep a kernel panic? What does lsusb and dmesg say?
Good luck. ;-)

The output of dmesg is as follows:

usb 4-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6
usb 4-4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
scsi3 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 6
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
usb-storage: device scan complete
usb 4-4: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6
usb 4-4: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6
usb 4-4: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6
usb 4-4: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6
usb 4-4: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6
scsi 3:0:0:0: scsi: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery

The output of lsusb is as follows:

Bus 003 Device 002: ID 046d:c001 Logitech, Inc. N48/M-BB48 [FirstMouse Plus]
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Nevertheless the beep from USB hard disk continues when I connect the same to the system.

Thanking you,

dmsreddy

P.S.: I had successfully connected this external USB disk on the different system with Debian Linux Etch/Lenny.

What is the file system on the drive? Have you tried a different cable?
Good luck. ;-)

Out of 100GB USB External HDD, I had created fat32 partition of 20GB. I have not used any different cable other than the one supplied along with the HDD.

What kernel version are you running? What happens if you boot with the drive already plugged in?
Good luck. ;-)

I am using kernel version 2.6.22-2-686 on Debian Lenny system.

What happens if you boot with the drive already plugged in?
Good luck. ;-)

I had booted the system with external USB Hard Disk already plugged in the USB port (USB 2.0 compatible). The following is the complete output generated by dmesg:

Linux version 2.6.22-2-686 (Debian 2.6.22-4) (waldi@debian.org) (gcc version 4.1.3 20070812 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.2-15)) #1 SMP Fri Aug 31 00:24:01 UTC 2007
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 00000000000a0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 0000000008000000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 00000000ffff0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
0MB HIGHMEM available.
128MB LOWMEM available.
Entering add_active_range(0, 0, 32768) 0 entries of 256 used
Zone PFN ranges:
DMA 0 -> 4096
Normal 4096 -> 32768
HighMem 32768 -> 32768
early_node_map[1] active PFN ranges
0: 0 -> 32768
On node 0 totalpages: 32768
DMA zone: 32 pages used for memmap
DMA zone: 0 pages reserved
DMA zone: 4064 pages, LIFO batch:0
Normal zone: 224 pages used for memmap
Normal zone: 28448 pages, LIFO batch:7
HighMem zone: 0 pages used for memmap
DMI 2.0 present.
Allocating PCI resources starting at 10000000 (gap: 08000000:f7ff0000)
Built 1 zonelists. Total pages: 32512
Kernel command line: root=/dev/hda1 ro acpi=off noapic nolapic
mapped APIC to ffffd000 (0110b000)
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Initializing CPU#0
PID hash table entries: 512 (order: 9, 2048 bytes)
Detected 334.101 MHz processor.
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Dentry cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Memory: 121112k/131072k available (1688k kernel code, 9428k reserved, 653k data, 244k init, 0k highmem)
virtual kernel memory layout:
fixmap : 0xfff4e000 - 0xfffff000 ( 708 kB)
pkmap : 0xff800000 - 0xffc00000 (4096 kB)
vmalloc : 0xc8800000 - 0xff7fe000 ( 879 MB)
lowmem : 0xc0000000 - 0xc8000000 ( 128 MB)
.init : 0xc034f000 - 0xc038c000 ( 244 kB)
.data : 0xc02a62bf - 0xc03497e4 ( 653 kB)
.text : 0xc0100000 - 0xc02a62bf (1688 kB)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.
Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 669.11 BogoMIPS (lpj=1338222)
Security Framework v1.0.0 initialized
SELinux: Disabled at boot.
Capability LSM initialized
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
CPU: After generic identify, caps: 0183f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: L1 I cache: 16K, L1 D cache: 16K
CPU: L2 cache: 128K
CPU: After all inits, caps: 0183f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000040 00000000 00000000 00000000
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
Compat vDSO mapped to ffffe000.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
SMP alternatives: switching to UP code
Freeing SMP alternatives: 11k freed
CPU0: Intel Celeron (Mendocino) stepping 00
SMP motherboard not detected.
Local APIC not detected. Using dummy APIC emulation.
Brought up 1 CPUs
Booting paravirtualized kernel on bare hardware
NET: Registered protocol family 16
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfb260, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
Setting up standard PCI resources
ACPI: Interpreter disabled.
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
pnp: PnP ACPI: disabled
PnPBIOS: Scanning system for PnP BIOS support...
PnPBIOS: Found PnP BIOS installation structure at 0xc00fbdf0
PnPBIOS: PnP BIOS version 1.0, entry 0xf0000:0xbe18, dseg 0xf0000
PnPBIOS: 14 nodes reported by PnP BIOS; 14 recorded by driver
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
* Found PM-Timer Bug on the chipset. Due to workarounds for a bug,
* this clock source is slow. Consider trying other clock sources
PCI quirk: region 4000-403f claimed by PIIX4 ACPI
PCI quirk: region 5000-500f claimed by PIIX4 SMB
PCI: Using IRQ router PIIX/ICH [8086/7110] at 0000:00:07.0
NET: Registered protocol family 8
NET: Registered protocol family 20
ACPI Exception (utmutex-0263): AE_BAD_PARAMETER, Thread C7AB2A50 could not acquire Mutex [3] [20070126]
pnp: 00:07: iomem range 0x0-0x9ffff could not be reserved
pnp: 00:07: iomem range 0xfffe0000-0xffffffff could not be reserved
pnp: 00:07: iomem range 0x100000-0x7ffffff could not be reserved
pnp: 00:08: iomem range 0xf0000-0xf3fff could not be reserved
pnp: 00:08: iomem range 0xf4000-0xf7fff could not be reserved
pnp: 00:08: iomem range 0xf8000-0xfbfff could not be reserved
pnp: 00:08: iomem range 0xfc000-0xfffff could not be reserved
Time: tsc clocksource has been installed.
PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:01.0
IO window: d000-dfff
MEM window: e8000000-e9ffffff
PREFETCH window: ea000000-ea7fffff
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP route cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
TCP established hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 49152 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 4096 bind 4096)
TCP reno registered
checking if image is initramfs... it is
Freeing initrd memory: 5318k freed
audit: initializing netlink socket (disabled)
audit(1193946812.188:1): initialized
VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1
Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler anticipatory registered
io scheduler deadline registered
io scheduler cfq registered (default)
Limiting direct PCI/PCI transfers.
Boot video device is 0000:01:00.0
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 4 ports, IRQ sharing enabled
serial8250: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
serial8250: ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
00:0a: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
00:0d: ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 8192K size 1024 blocksize
PNP: PS/2 Controller [PNP0303] at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
PNP: PS/2 controller doesn't have AUX irq; using default 12
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
TCP bic registered
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 17
Using IPI No-Shortcut mode
Freeing unused kernel memory: 244k freed
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /class/input/input0
thermal: Unknown symbol acpi_processor_set_thermal_limit
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
usbcore: registered new device driver usb
USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v3.0
PCI: setting IRQ 11 as level-triggered
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 0000:00:07.2
uhci_hcd 0000:00:07.2: UHCI Host Controller
uhci_hcd 0000:00:07.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
uhci_hcd 0000:00:07.2: irq 11, io base 0x0000e000
usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
ohci_hcd: 2006 August 04 USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver
PCI: setting IRQ 15 as level-triggered
PCI: Found IRQ 15 for device 0000:00:0f.0
ohci_hcd 0000:00:0f.0: OHCI Host Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:0f.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
ohci_hcd 0000:00:0f.0: irq 15, io mem 0xea800000
usb usb2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 2-0:1.0: 3 ports detected
PCI: setting IRQ 10 as level-triggered
PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 0000:00:0f.1
PCI: Sharing IRQ 10 with 0000:00:10.0
ohci_hcd 0000:00:0f.1: OHCI Host Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:0f.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
ohci_hcd 0000:00:0f.1: irq 10, io mem 0xea801000
usb usb3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 3-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
via-rhine.c:v1.10-LK1.4.3 2007-03-06 Written by Donald Becker
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
usb 2-2: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 2
PCI: setting IRQ 12 as level-triggered
PCI: Found IRQ 12 for device 0000:00:0f.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 12 with 0000:00:12.0
ehci_hcd 0000:00:0f.2: EHCI Host Controller
ehci_hcd 0000:00:0f.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 4
ehci_hcd 0000:00:0f.2: irq 12, io mem 0xea802000
ehci_hcd 0000:00:0f.2: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 0.95, driver 10 Dec 2004
usb usb4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 4-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 4-0:1.0: 5 ports detected
PIIX4: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:07.1
PIIX4: chipset revision 1
PIIX4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xf000-0xf007, BIOS settings: hdaio, hdbio
Probing IDE interface ide0...
hda: ST34321A, ATA DISK drive
usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
hdb: SAMSUNG CD-R/RW SW-252B, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hda: selected mode 0x42
hdb: selected mode 0x42
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
PCI: Found IRQ 12 for device 0000:00:12.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 12 with 0000:00:0f.2
eth0: VIA Rhine III at 0x1e800, 00:13:46:64:55:92, IRQ 12.
eth0: MII PHY found at address 1, status 0x786d advertising 05e1 Link 41e1.
SCSI subsystem initialized
libata version 2.21 loaded.
hdb: ATAPI 52X CD-ROM CD-R/RW drive, 8192kB Cache, UDMA(33)
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
hda: max request size: 128KiB
hda: 8404830 sectors (4303 MB) w/128KiB Cache, CHS=8894/15/63, UDMA(33)
hda: cache flushes not supported
hda: hda1 hda2
Attempting manual resume
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
usb 4-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
usb 3-1: new low speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 2
usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
shpchp: Standard Hot Plug PCI Controller Driver version: 0.4
Linux agpgart interface v0.102 (c) Dave Jones
agpgart: Detected an Intel 440LX Chipset.
agpgart: AGP aperture is 128M @ 0xe0000000
Real Time Clock Driver v1.12ac
input: PC Speaker as /class/input/input1
piix4_smbus 0000:00:07.3: Found 0000:00:07.3 device
usbcore: registered new interface driver hiddev
parport_pc 00:0c: reported by Plug and Play BIOS
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778), irq 7, dma 3 [PCSPP,TRISTATE,COMPAT,ECP,DMA]
input: Logitech as /class/input/input2
input: USB HID v1.00 Mouse [Logitech] on usb-0000:00:0f.1-1
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
drivers/hid/usbhid/hid-core.c: v2.6:USB HID core driver
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi0 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
usb-storage: device found at 3
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 0000:00:10.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 10 with 0000:00:0f.1
Adding 297192k swap on /dev/hda2. Priority:-1 extents:1 across:297192k
EXT3 FS on hda1, internal journal
usb-storage: device scan complete
Probing IDE interface ide1...
device-mapper: ioctl: 4.11.0-ioctl (2006-10-12) initialised: dm-devel@redhat.com
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
eth0: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x41E1
NET: Registered protocol family 10
lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions
PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
NET: Registered protocol family 24
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
eth0: no IPv6 routers present
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access Generic USB Disk 9.02 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 195371568 512-byte hardware sectors (100030 MB)
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 195371568 512-byte hardware sectors (100030 MB)
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
sda:<6>usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Result: hostbyte=DID_ABORT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK
end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0
Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Result: hostbyte=DID_ABORT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK
end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0
Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Result: hostbyte=DID_ABORT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK
end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0
Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 4-3: device descriptor read/64, error -71
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 4-3: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
sd 0:0:0:0: scsi: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Result: hostbyte=DID_ABORT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK
end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0
Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0
sd 0:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to offline device
Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0
ldm_validate_partition_table(): Disk read failed.
sd 0:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to offline device
Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0
sd 0:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to offline device
Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0
sd 0:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to offline device
Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0
sd 0:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to offline device
Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0
Dev sda: unable to read RDB block 0
sd 0:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to offline device
Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0
sd 0:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to offline device
Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0
sd 0:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to offline device
Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 3
sd 0:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to offline device
Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 3
sd 0:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to offline device
unable to read partition table
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk

I hope that you would be able to offer some suggestion based on the above information.

P.S.: I am able to use USB pendrives (1GB) on my system and I have not used USB pendrive when I plugged in external USB hard disk to the system.

I'm seeing some references (googling) to a problem with either the hardware or the kernel. Some work arounds I've seen are saying to remove and reinsert the ehci_hcd module. I'm guessing the problem is with the kernel since the device works with another system. There are some kernel config options in this thread. Another route to take would be to compare the kernel config files for the system that works and the current one.

Does this drive have it's own power source or does it run strictly from the usb port?
Good luck. ;-)

This drive does not have its own power source.

That could be part of the problem as well. If you have access to a powered hub, you could try that. I've had problems with usb devices with multiple OS's that have power problems.
Good luck. ;-)

As suggested by you, I removed ehci_hcd module from the kernel and connected the USB external HDD to the system. It was detected by the kernel as 100GB disk. I was able to add/delete partitions from it. However, I was not able to write anything to the disk or mount the disk.

What does fdisk -l say about it?
Good luck. ;-)