usb storage device

R++ · 03-29-2005, 11:31 AM

hello, how can i access files stored in a usb storage device???
i'm on red hat 9, i already sticked it in the usb port but nothing happens
it is formatted in fat32 (i think) because the files were stored using windows xp

can you help me with this please??, i have to work on this files and haven't a lot of time

thanks a lot

the_clown · 03-29-2005, 11:40 AM

Typing in 'dmesg' in a terminal will show you something like

Code:

scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
  Vendor: LEXAR     Model: JUMPDRIVE SECURE  Rev: 2000
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
SCSI device sda: 502880 512-byte hdwr sectors (257 MB)
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
 /dev/scsi/host2/bus0/target0/lun0: p1
Attached scsi disk sda at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Attached scsi generic sg0 at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 0,  type 0
USB Mass Storage device found at 2

The line "SCSI device sda: 502880 512-byte hdwr sectors (257 MB)
sda: assuming drive cache: write through" lets you know it is mounted as device /dev/sda, so you can then mount it as /dev/sda1 (1 being the first partition).

As root (su -) type

Code:

mkdir /mnt/usb
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb

Your device is now mounted. If you want to enable write access, using your favorite text editor (I'm using vi in this example) open up /etc/fstab (as root) and add the following line:

Code:

/dev/sda1  /mnt/usb  vfat  noauto,users,owner,exec,umask=000   0 0

Save and exit. Now anytime you want to mount your device you can do so simply by typing "mount /dev/sda1". Hope that helps.
-the_clown

bship · 03-31-2005, 10:58 AM

This place is great!!! I mean LinuxQuestions.org

I am still 10 mos. new to Linux, but old to networking and information technology.
I have gotten 2 very big painful questions answered here!

Please keep up the great job!!!

Using the info. that "the_clown" posted, I was able to mount and use my USB Lexar Jumpdrive in RedHat Enterprise.
Now I have backed up all my Linux info and config files!

Thanks, guys!

the_clown · 03-31-2005, 01:24 PM

Glad it helped someone.

J.W. · 03-31-2005, 03:00 PM

Congrats on solving the problem and thanks for posting back with the solution bship. Likewise, thanks the_clown for providing that advice. Welcome to LQ, both of you! -- J.W.

mrossm · 03-31-2005, 06:23 PM

Hello, I have the same issue with the USB harddrive (using Mandrake 10.0), and I have a thread a couple pages down. My problem is that when I use dmesg, there is no reference to any sda. If you view my post "Autodetect", I placed the dmesg output relevant to USB. Thanks.

sacerdoti · 04-11-2005, 02:08 PM

Hello,

Is there a way to programmatically determine what device (/dev/sdxx) a usb drive is mapped to? Specifically, I do not want to rely on dmsg: a script will be doing this, not a human. My question is for Linux 2.6.

Thank you,
Federico Sacerdoti

Valhalla · 04-11-2005, 02:38 PM

Well the physical devices count up from a in the order they are detected, i.e. the order they are plugged in, or if plugged in at boot, the order the kernel sees them. the 1,2,3... just refers to the physical partitions you have on the device. If you have udev installed on your system they are statically mapped until you unplug them. If heard someone tried to do this by parsing the output of dmesg. I don't think he ever got it to work.