usb mp3 player: which file system?
 

I just bought a cheapo usb 1gb mp3 player that won't work ok. I have to figure this out so I can return it to the vendor in time, if its the case.

I plug it in, mount it with this fstab line:

/dev/sda /mnt/usb auto defaults,sync,umask=0000

and I can access the medium. But the problems are:

- I never could be able to save 1GB in it, or even close to it. The best try was ~200MB.
- It kinda looses the filesystem info, so that after a few plug/unplugs debian eventually will tell me that there's no filesystem in the medium.
- when I format it with mkdosfs and save some mp3 files, it can play those files. But if I try to save some more, it will fail with 'disk full' and other messages.

I started to play with the mkdosfs switches and finally I had some clearing message on my dmesg:
FAT: Filesystem panic (dev sda)
fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 0)
FAT: Filesystem panic (dev sda)
fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 0)
FAT: Filesystem panic (dev sda)
fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 0)
FAT: Filesystem panic (dev sda)

(lots of lines...)

So, it seems like a software issue, rather than a malfunctioning player. But I'd like to be positive about this.

Could you usb gurus give me any help on this?

System is Debian Sarge, mkdosfs 2.11.

I have formatted all my usb sticks and mp3 players as fat32 with parted (qtparted) which makes it work just fine with usbmount (app to auto mount and umount the sticks) and works with any win pc aswell.
I've never used mkdosfs so I don't know if that might have anything to do with your problems.
You have to make sure though that before you unplug the device that there is NO activity going on between the device and debian. That could very well be the cause of loosing the filesystem and data.

http://usbmount.alioth.debian.org/

Thanks!
well, I unmounted the player before unplugging. This is enough for no activity, right?

It turned out the player was flawed. I swapped for another which works ok.
thanks!