has anyone been able to mount a usb memory stick "pro" mass-storage device... like a camera or whatever? If so, please let me know how... do I need a special driver? (compared with the usual, non "pro", style device).

I think "pro" is just a marketing device and should mount normally.

Did you encounter anything to the contrary?

I think your problem might be that Sony cameras etc. aren't your standard Mass Storage Devices. They normally need a driver to operate on Windows/Mac. To read your memory stick pro through your camera - visit http://www.gphoto.org/proj/libgphoto2/support.php and see if your camera is supported. (There's probably a KDE alternative if that's your flavour.)

Otherwise, you should be able to pick up a Memory Stick Pro reader when you plug into your USB port and then plug in your MS Pro - then it should work like a normal USB Mass Storage Device.

(BTW Berto - I understand that MS Pro is significantly different from the standard Sony MS. I assume it's a technical difference that allows the format to hold more than 128MB - the upper limit for a normal Memory Stick.)

Daniel

Thanks...

I have gphoto2 and so on already... the gphoto folk suggest

www.tldp.org/HOWTO/USB-Digital-Camera-HOWTO/

in their manual.

The camera has options: "normal", "PTP", and "PictBridge".

normal is the mass storage option I used before... the P-32 worked fine as a mass storage device - even letting me write to the stick.

PictBridge is the printer option - never used.

PTP is, presumably, recognised by gphoto and so on.


I note that windows seems to need external drivers for most everything.

Soney says that the memory stick pro devices are not always compatable with third party drivers but do not elaborate. The "pro" label, indeed, indicates a technological difference in the device.

However - it looks like my camera is still using the old (non pro) memory stick??? I'm not sure what is supposed to be going on, but I suspect that a mass storage reader will be the way to go... then I can read other stuff too


aside: what happened was... the P-32 (wonderful camera BTW) broke - while being fixed I got a loaner of a P-73, which is the P-72 with the pro option. Today, the supplier has given up fixing the old P-32 and has given me a replacement camera, which is the P-41. I've got it home, only to find that it too is a pro model... grrrr!

maybe if I use a pro mem stick in the camera it'll interface... but I doubt that would cause this problem. eg. Why would it not be recognised as a block special device?

gphoto does not recognise PTP - but jPhoto does (www.jphoto.sourceforge.net) and it's really small. I'll try it out later this week.

Do the later kernels have explicit support for mem-stick-pro? I'd better give up my details, since this seems to be a trickier problem than anticipated:

I am running redhat 9 with the 2.4.22 kernel on an intel celeron (i686) and SiS chipset motherboard.

as root:
mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/camera

returns
/dev/sda1 is not a valid block special device

dmesg...
hub.c: new USB device 00:0b.0-1, assigned address 9
usb.c: kmalloc IF c3bf37c0, numif 1
usb.c: new device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
usb.c: USB device number 9 default language ID 0x409
Manufacturer: Sony
Product: Sony DSC
usb.c: unhandled interfaces on device
usb.c: USB device 9 (vend/prod 0x54c/0x10) is not claimed by any active driver.

lsmod...
Module Size Used by Not tainted
nls_iso8859-1 3516 1 (autoclean)
usb-ohci 21448 0 (unused)
usb-storage 28400 0 (unused)
sd_mod 12556 0 (unused)
scsi_mod 70836 1 [usb-storage sd_mod]
isofs 20812 1 (autoclean)
ppp_async 9440 1 (autoclean)
ppp_generic 21180 3 (autoclean) [ppp_async]
slhc 6740 1 (autoclean) [ppp_generic]
ide-cd 35680 1 (autoclean)
cdrom 33696 0 (autoclean) [ide-cd]
parport_pc 19044 0 (autoclean)
parport 37056 0 (autoclean) [parport_pc]
apm 12680 2
8139too 17320 0
mii 3976 0 [8139too]
crc32 3712 0 [8139too]
ipt_state 1048 3 (autoclean)
ip_conntrack 27272 1 (autoclean) [ipt_state]
iptable_filter 2412 1 (autoclean)
ip_tables 15520 2 [ipt_state iptable_filter]
keybdev 2944 0 (unused)
mousedev 5556 1
input 5760 0 [keybdev mousedev]
hid 12408 0 (unused)
unix 18120 251 (autoclean)

And nothing further - gtkam apparently recognises the P73 as a P72 in PTP. But I now use a card reader - it is more relable.