Hi there,

Last week I bought a 256Mb sd card for my digital camera (Aiptek DV3300).
I took several pictures with it and all worked perfectly but when I tried to connect the camera to my linux box it hangs and when i try to mount the device with "mount -t vfat /dev/sda /mnt/camera" after several seconds i get the message "Unable to mount not a valid block device".
The camera worked with a 64Mb sd card and gave me no problem (the digital camera is seen as an usb mass storage device).
I also tried with a usb multi card reader based on SMSC USB 97223 but it didn't work.

Can anyone give me some help?

Thanks in advance.

Did you try /dev/sda1 instead of /dev/sda?

Welcome aboard, ndriutti.

Since you're running Mandrake 10.1, it should try and mount it for you already. Once you've plugged it in, check to see if there's a new directory /mnt/removable. If so, then that's your camera. If not...

After you have plugged it in, try running fdisk -l (that is a lowercase L) as root. That should show you which partition you need to mount. It is usually the first partition (so sda1), but it always pays to check.

Once you know which partition it is, then you should be able to mount it, but you may need to be root!

Since I use removable USB storage quite a lot (pendrive, camera, etc), I like to create a new entry in my fstab for removable devices:

There is only /dev/sda.
I tried to use the same sd card with winxp and it works flawlessy.
Why it doesn't work with linux?

This is dmesg output with the card reader and 256Mb sd card:

usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using address 3
scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Vendor: SMSC Model: 223 U HS-CF Rev: 1.95
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Vendor: SMSC Model: 223 U HS-MS Rev: 1.95
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Attached scsi removable disk sdb at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 1
Vendor: SMSC Model: 223 U HS-SM Rev: 1.95
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Attached scsi removable disk sdc at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 2
Vendor: SMSC Model: 223 U HS-SD/MMC Rev: 1.95
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
SCSI device sdd: 499712 512-byte hdwr sectors (256 MB)
sdd: Write Protect is off
sdd: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
sdd: assuming drive cache: write through
/dev/scsi/host1/bus0/target0/lun3: p1
Attached scsi removable disk sdd at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 3
USB Mass Storage device found at 3

And, after few minutes:

usb 1-1: reset full speed USB device using address 3
scsi: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery: host 1 channel 0 id 0 lun 3
When i disconnect the device
usb 1-1: USB disconnect, address 3

I'm not an expert at analysing dmesg output, but all seems OK to me. One thing though: it seems that your card is attached as /dev/sdd, not /dev/sda... Try and mount each /dev/sd... you have in turn, and see if sdd, or another, works...
Gook luck.

Yves.

Asking why a device that works flawlessly under Windows doesn't work under Linux is like asking why a putting diesel into a petrol engine doesn't work. Some devices have been manufactured to use as few pieces of actual silicon as possible - take Winmodems for example. The manufacturer has put all their efforts into make a "driver" for Windows (and occasionally Macs too) which actually handles as much processing as possible, therefore allowing the device to be made more cheaply since it has fewer chips in it. Of course, if you try to use this device under any other operating system, the manufacturer hasn't produced drivers for it, so you'll be out of luck.

Luckily, there are hundreds/thousands of people that contribute to Linux itself (not to mention all the programmes that will run on Linux) and work on making as many devices as possible work.

Your dmesg output does say that "SCSI device sdd: 499712 512-byte hdwr sectors (256 MB)
sdd: Write Protect is off". Have you tried accessing it as /dev/sdd?

Here's a thought for you;
A USB card reader is treated as a removable SCSI storage device. SCSI has the ability to handle multiple devices on the same cable. Each of them has a separate LUN. If you have a multi-reader (one that can read upto 7 different types of "memory card") then it is more than likely that each individual reader has its own LUN. If this is the case, then each will be presented to the system as a separate device, sda, sdb, sdc, sdd, sde, sdf, sdg and sdh, and each can have its own partitioning scheme.

So, try /dev/sdd1

Sorry, I did not explain the question properly.
My question is: why the device works fine in linux only with 64Mb sd card and not with 256 Mb card while in windows it works with both the cards.

The first time I plugged in the camera with 256mb card i tried to open it with the icon appeared in Kde desktop (with 64mb I always did so with success) but the response after few minutes is "cannot mount, not a valid block device".

So I tried to mount the memory card using the digital camera (seen as /dev/sda) and a multiple card reader (the sd slot is seen as /dev/sdd).

I used "mount -t /dev/sda /mnt/foo" for the camera and "mount -t /dev/sdd /mnt/foo" and "mount -t /dev/sdd1 /mnt/foo" for the card reader but the reply is the same "not a valid block device".

The dmesg output is related to card reader.


Now, is there any other way to try?


Thank you for your patience.

I don't know if this will be of any help, but I can access my Kodak via usb using GTKam and unlike my buddy's cannon which you simply select his camera type and it works, I must press the send picture button on the dock, then while it is trying to send, select the camera type or it does not connect.

Usually I opt to stick my 256meg sd card in a Jumpdrive Trio and just plug that into a usb port. I then use Nautilus or konqueror to view the "removable" entry that appears in /mnt/ on the graphical tree.
I have no idea why this quirk, but it is not uncommon for me to plug it into a port and get nothing showing in the card, pull it out and try it in a different usb port and find that it works.

Maybe I don't understand something here, but I thought 10.1 would be like 10 where plugging your card in without the camera should automount, therefor you simply access it in the /mnt/ directory, not the /dev/ directory. I never need to open a terminal session to do anything pertaining to my camera.

I have just upgraded to kernel 2.6.9 and now it works great!
I can mount the 256Mb sd card with both the digital camera and memory card reader.

Bye...