can't mount vfat [SOLVED]

[phunni]

Every time I try to mount either my floppy drive or my sony clie memory stick as vfat (it has worked in the past) I get the standard error:

 

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/floppy/0,

or too many mounted file systems

 

At first I wondered if vfat was simply not supported by my kernel, but I looked in the config and it's there as a module: vfat. I loaded the module and I still get the same error.

 

Any ideas why this might be?

 

Edit: my fstab for the floppy drive: /dev/floppy/0 /mnt/floppy vfat user,noauto,unhide 0 0

[arctic]

have you changed any parts in your comp? sometimes these problems arise when new hardware gets plugged into a box. most time, it has nothing to do with the vfta fromat but with the place where you mount it. e.g. with usb-devices i experienced that some will only load as /dev/sda1, while others only want /dev/sda or /dev/sdb.

check your /dev directory and the /mnt directory.

 

p.s: why is there a unhide entry in your fstab? i use "rw,user,noauto" in my fstab.

Edited November 22, 2004 by arctic

[phunni]

no idea about the unhide - I'll remove it, and see what happens.

 

I haven't changed any hardware - but I recently did an OS reinstall and it's been broken ever since.

 

My clie memory stick has always apepared as /dev/sda1 - although only after I tried to mount it as /dev/sd/<some weird filename> and failed: at that point sda1 appeared

[aRTee]

You can also try to give a full mount command as root:

 

mount /dev/sda1 -t vfat /mnt/[whereever you want to mount it]

 

and then see if it works.

[phunni]

I have tried that - in fact the memory stick isn't in /etc/fstab so I have to do that to mount it. I only use the fstab entry for my floppy which returns the same error.

[pmpatrick]

For your floppy try this:

 

# mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

 

Re your usb stick, with the stick inserted run:

 

# fdisk -l

 

That should list all recognized filesystems, whether mounted or not. See if your usb stick is recognized and what device file it's given if recognized.

[phunni]

result of fdisk -l:

 

Disk /dev/sda: 249 MB, 249823232 bytes

16 heads, 32 sectors/track, 953 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 512 * 512 = 262144 bytes

 

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/sda1 * 1 952 243630+ 6 FAT16

 

 

This only works after I try and mount it from /dev/sd/<some weird name>

 

I am still told that it can't be mounted - same with my floppy, I get the same error even if I specify msdos

[arctic]

this is really weird. do other arch-users experience the same problem or is it just you?

[iphitus]

this is really weird. do other arch-users experience the same problem or is it just you?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

This isnt something caused by arch.

 

phunni: try a different kernel, are you using the arch kernel?

[phunni]

I'm using a custom vanilla kernel from kernel.org. I have vfat available as a module, but it doesn't make any difference when it's loaded (obviously it won't work when it's not loaded!)

[pmpatrick]

A couple of observations. Both devices are using FAT16 not FAT32. I just did a lsmod and notice I have both "vfat" and "fat" modules loaded with mdk10.1-OE. I'm wondering if you have your fat module loaded as well; I'm assuming it's for FAT16.

[iphitus]

try recompiling, and compile vfat into your kernel

 

CONFIG_FAT_FS=y
CONFIG_MSDOS_FS=y
CONFIG_VFAT_FS=y
CONFIG_FAT_DEFAULT_CODEPAGE=437
CONFIG_FAT_DEFAULT_IOCHARSET="iso8859-1"
CONFIG_NTFS_FS=y

 

That's what I have.

[phunni]

Odd, I thought I had already replied to this - but I can do it again...

 

After recompiling (gave me a good excuse to go to 2.6.9 as well...) I have everything that iphitus has - except that ntfs is a module not compiled in. I don;t think that's relevant though as none of the media I'm having trouble with are ntfs - and I did check just in case!

[phunni]

any ideas at all...?

[Guest richarddoe]

any ideas at all...?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

phunni,

 

I was having the same problem on an AMD64 box running Gentoo with 2.6.9 kernel.

 

What it turned out to be for me was the kernel missing Native Language Support for the chosen FAT iocharset.

 

Whenever I tried to mount the FAT16 device as vfat, this message was logged to the kernel log file:

 

[kernel] Unable to load NLS charset iso8859-1

 

To fix this (or rule it out as the problem on your system), check your kernel configuration for the "Default iocharset for FAT" under "File systems" > "DOS/FAT/NT Filesystems". Then make sure that iocharset is being compiled under "File systems" > "Native Language Support".

 

In my situation, the "Default iocharset for FAT" was set to "iso8859-1" but "Native Language Support" > "NLS ISO 8859-1 (Latin 1; Western European Languages)" was not being compiled. I compiled it as a module, loaded the module, and was instantly able to mount the device as vfat.

 

HTH,

Rich