Hey all,

I searched through the forums and I know this has been talked about over and over but my problem seems to be unique.

I have a new Sandisk 512MB flash drive. It's formatted with FAT.
When I attempt to mount it using
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb
I get this error: mount: you must specify the filesystem type

so, I attempt
mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb OR mount -t msdos /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb

and I get this error:
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda1,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so

so I check dmesg:

Device 08:01 not ready.
I/O error: dev 08:01, sector 0
FAT: unable to read boot sector
UMSDOS: msdos_read_super failed, mount aborted.
Device 08:01 not ready.
I/O error: dev 08:01, sector 0
FAT: unable to read boot sector
Device 08:01 not ready.
I/O error: dev 08:01, sector 0
FAT: unable to read boot sector


Just a little more info, I have an external 20GB USB drive with the FAT32 filesystem and am able to mount it no problem when I need to using mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb

Is the 512MB drive the problem?

Thanks for helping!

I've seen this problem off and on with my Sandisk 256mb usb stick. I haven't figured out if it is kernel related, but I think it may be the usb-storage driver doesn't quite have the correct timings. On some distros I work with, it comes right up, others give me the same error some of the time.

Try removing the drive and waiting a few seconds, then reinsert it. Wait for the lights to stop flickering and check dmesg to see if it stabilized. Another thing to try, is reformating the drive on a windows system. HP has a usb stick formatting tool that works with this drive.

Good luck.

strangely enough, reformat to FAT in windows and reboot worked.

Glad to hear it. There is something about Sandisk that isn't completely stable (at least in Linux). Not sure why.