Hi All,

I am running Open Suse 10.1 and when I finst installed it and connected my external USB drive the system recognised it much the same way as windows would. However I have since turned my laptop off but now when I am using it and I connect the USB drive it is not recognised by my notebook.

This has happened in other Distros as well such as Ubuntu. I initially thought the USB drive was screwed but when I connect it to my windows box it works first time every time. I'm just confused as to why things would work flawlessly the first time, but not on subsequent attempts.

Any pointers to information of relevance would be greatly appreciated.

Make sure scsi modules are loaded, that was my problem for not getting to mount a usb drive at all..and then check out UDEV rules.

Are you saying you can't manually mount it? Or are you saying that it doesn't automagically tell you about it and ask you to mount it?

Both actually. I'm not a Linux guru or anything, but when I installed Suse from DVD onto my notebook it automagically detected and made available the external USB drive. I guess I was expecting that to happen everytime I plugged the external drive in, as happens in Windows.

If you are saying I need to mount it manually then how do I find out what the device name is ie hdb sda ??

Thanks for your help so far guys.

I did an lsmod but as far as I can tell the scsi modules are loaded (see below for a printout). Are there any other modules that need mounting?

Module Size Used by
usb_storage 70208 0
joydev 9024 0
sg 31004 0
st 34332 0
sd_mod 16144 0
sr_mod 14500 0
scsi_mod 122120 5 usb_storage,sg,st,sd_mod,sr_mod
af_packet 19336 4
xt_pkttype 1792 3
ipt_LOG 5632 8
xt_limit 2432 8
cpufreq_ondemand 5660 1
cpufreq_userspace 3732 0
cpufreq_powersave 1792 0
acpi_cpufreq 5512 0
freq_table 4228 1 acpi_cpufreq
snd_pcm_oss 42752 0
snd_mixer_oss 16512 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq 47216 0
snd_seq_device 7948 1 snd_seq
edd 8516 0
button 6672 0
battery 9476 0
ac 4996 0
ip6t_REJECT 4992 3
xt_tcpudp 3072 3
ipt_REJECT 5120 3
xt_state 2048 12
iptable_mangle 2688 0
iptable_nat 7684 0
ip_nat 15660 1 iptable_nat
iptable_filter 2816 1
ip6table_mangle 2304 0
ip_conntrack 47916 3 xt_state,iptable_nat,ip_nat
nfnetlink 6168 2 ip_nat,ip_conntrack
ip_tables 11080 3 iptable_mangle,iptable_nat,iptable_filter
ip6table_filter 2688 1
ip6_tables 12360 2 ip6table_mangle,ip6table_filter
x_tables 11908 10 xt_pkttype,ipt_LOG,xt_limit,ip6t_REJECT,xt_tcpudp,ipt_REJECT,xt_state,iptable_nat,ip_tables,ip6_tabl es
ipv6 215808 13 ip6t_REJECT
apparmor 47004 0
aamatch_pcre 13440 1 apparmor
nls_iso8859_1 4096 0
nls_cp437 5760 0
vfat 11648 0
fat 46620 1 vfat
loop 14728 0
dm_mod 52584 0
usbhid 39392 0
shpchp 39488 0
pci_hotplug 24372 1 shpchp
pcmcia 34492 0
i8xx_tco 6804 0
ohci1394 29360 0
ieee1394 87992 1 ohci1394
8139too 23808 0
mii 5120 1 8139too
ehci_hcd 26760 0
i2c_i801 8076 0
i2c_core 19728 1 i2c_i801
uhci_hcd 27280 0
usbcore 109700 5 usb_storage,usbhid,ehci_hcd,uhci_hcd
intel_agp 21020 1
agpgart 28976 1 intel_agp
ipw2200 92980 0
ieee80211 28232 1 ipw2200
ieee80211_crypt 5248 1 ieee80211
firmware_class 9856 2 pcmcia,ipw2200
ide_cd 35488 0
snd_intel8x0 30236 1
snd_ac97_codec 82848 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_ac97_bus 2176 1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm 80136 3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer 20868 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd 51076 10 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore 8672 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 9608 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
yenta_socket 23692 1
rsrc_nonstatic 12416 1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core 37008 3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
cdrom 32416 2 sr_mod,ide_cd
reiserfs 210944 2
fan 4612 0
thermal 13448 0
processor 22592 2 acpi_cpufreq,thermal
piix 9092 0 [permanent]
ide_disk 15104 4
ide_core 116540 4 usb_storage,ide_cd,piix,ide_disk

Another interesting observation is that I just connected a USB Memory stick to my notebook and it was immediately noticed in that USB Memory - KDE Daemon window opened asking what I would like "open in a new window" or "do nothing".

I selected "Open in a new window" which showed the file contents in Konqueror. The files for the USB memory stick are in location "system:/media/sda1" so I guess the SCSI drivers are working. It looks as though the problem lies with the external HDD enclosure, but as I have said it already worked with my SUSE setup immediately after setup and works everytime with Windows.

I'm just wondering why that would not happen dor

I got sick of mucking around and went and bought a new drive enclosure. Works perfectly!