USB key not mounting

NNP · 03-29-2006, 12:23 PM

I just bought a new 512mb disgo usb key and im having trouble mounting it. I've gone through the usual steps of making sure the usb port is ok and ensuring its actually being picked up but the problem appears to be the filesystem it uses. The following is the results of a few commands. They'll make more sense than me ranting on

lsusb -- my usb key and external hd are picked up. Incidently the external hd mounts fine using mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/exhdd

Code:

debian:/proc/bus/usb# lsusb
Bus 004 Device 003: ID 08ec:0008 M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 1058:0403 Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Code:

debian:/proc/bus/usb# dmesg | grep -i "SCSI device"
SCSI device sda: 488397168 512-byte hdwr sectors (250059 MB)
SCSI device sdb: 1005568 512-byte hdwr sectors (515 MB)

I try both vfat and ntfs just in case.....

Code:

debian:/proc/bus/usb# mount -t vfat -o uid=nnp,gid=users /dev/sdb /mnt/usbkey/
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb,
       missing codepage or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

debian:/proc/bus/usb# mount -t ntfs -o uid=nnp,gid=users /dev/sdb /mnt/usbkey/
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb,
       missing codepage or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

....and they both fail miserably

Code:

debian:/proc/bus/usb# dmesg | tail
parport0: BUSY timeout (1) in compat_write_block_pio
FIFO write timed out
FAT: invalid media value (0xb9)
VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev sdb.
parport0: FIFO is stuck
parport0: BUSY timeout (1) in compat_write_block_pio
NTFS-fs error (device sdb): read_ntfs_boot_sector(): Primary boot sector is invalid.
NTFS-fs error (device sdb): read_ntfs_boot_sector(): Mount option errors=recover not used. Aborting without trying to recover.
NTFS-fs error (device sdb): ntfs_fill_super(): Not an NTFS volume.
FIFO write timed out
debian:/proc/bus/usb# fdisk

Any ideas?

Thanks,
nnp

imitheos · 03-29-2006, 01:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NNP

I just bought a new 512mb disgo usb key and im having trouble mounting it. I've gone through the usual steps of making sure the usb port is ok and ensuring its actually being picked up but the problem appears to be the filesystem it uses. The following is the results of a few commands. They'll make more sense than me ranting on

lsusb -- my usb key and external hd are picked up. Incidently the external hd mounts fine using mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/exhdd

Code:

debian:/proc/bus/usb# dmesg | grep -i "SCSI device"
SCSI device sda: 488397168 512-byte hdwr sectors (250059 MB)
SCSI device sdb: 1005568 512-byte hdwr sectors (515 MB)

I try both vfat and ntfs just in case.....

Code:

debian:/proc/bus/usb# mount -t vfat -o uid=nnp,gid=users /dev/sdb /mnt/usbkey/
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb,
       missing codepage or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

debian:/proc/bus/usb# mount -t ntfs -o uid=nnp,gid=users /dev/sdb /mnt/usbkey/
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb,
       missing codepage or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

....and they both fail miserably

Any ideas?

Thanks,
nnp

USB Flash disks use a hard disk layout. That is the first sector has a partition table and they support partitions.
If you give "dmesg|grep sdb" you will see that it will probably have a /dev/sdb1 partition.
You can see the same info by running "fdisk -l /dev/sdb". So the mount command will be the same but instead of using
/dev/sdb you will use /dev/sdb1 (or whatever is the number of the partition).

NNP · 03-29-2006, 05:11 PM

Yup, as you said it would be sdb1

Code:

debian:/home/nnp# fdisk -l /dev/sdb

Disk /dev/sdb: 514 MB, 514850816 bytes
16 heads, 32 sectors/track, 1964 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 512 * 512 = 262144 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1        1964      502768    e  W95 FAT16 (LBA)
debian:/home/nnp#

Cant believe i missed that

Unfortunately though that doesnt appear to be the root of the problem. Running the mount command im still getting the same error.

Code:

debian:/home/nnp# mount -t vfat -o uid=nnp,gid=users /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbkey/
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb1,
       missing codepage or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

debian:/home/nnp#

I tail'ed dmesg again and this was in it

Code:

VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev sdb1.

tredegar · 03-30-2006, 06:52 AM

Have you tried repartitioning and reformatting (as FAT32) the USB flash disk?

HTH

NNP · 03-30-2006, 11:35 AM

nope, i had hoped i could avoid that. I think im just going to go do that now though. Seems like the least amount of hassle at this stage

imitheos · 03-30-2006, 02:52 PM

I guess the problem is that the partition is formatted to FAT16 (as the partition table mentions), so the mount command failed
because you told it to try vfat filesystem.

You can do two things.

1) Use it as FAT16 (mount it without "-t vfat etc") but you won't have large filenames (only 8.3 names)

2) Format the partition as FAT32 (mkdosfs -F 32)