usb stick will not mount

[lonewolfonline]

Hi,

 

I'm a new user to linux, just installed it yesterday and I'm trying to get online. Apparently my broadcom 4328 wireless card isn't supported nativly so I have to use the ndiswrapper. I downloaded the driver and put on a usb stick (from Windows) but I cannot access the drive. I have tried a number of searches and tried the suggestions, but I just cannot get this to work.

 

I found one thread about changing the icons (Configure Desktop, Behaviour, Icons) but nothing. I also tried manually mounting the drive - I have created /mnt/usb and tried to mount it using

 

su

mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb

 

But it tells me that an ntfs is not correct file system. I reformatted under windows as fat32 and tried with -t vfat but it still tells me about wrong filesystem type.

 

The device is shown under USB devices in KInfoCenter, however if I run dmsg |tail -n 15 after inserting the stick I get this message:

 

usb 1-8.1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...

scsi9 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices

usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage

USB Mass Storage support registered.

usb-storage: device found at 18

usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning

usbcore: deregistering interface driver usb-storage

 

Does this mean its unsupperted or something is not loaded?

 

The device is a Corsair Flash Voyager 4GB and I am using Mandriva 2008 Spring.

 

I am a long time windows user looking to make the switch. I am trying to setup my HP TX1250 laptop and I have already wiped Vista - no turning back or taking the easy way out!

 

I think I may have many questions coming up soon...

 

Thanks for any tips you can give me on this matter.

 

Kind Regards

Tim

Edited September 10, 2008 by lonewolfonline

[ianw1974]

We can check to see if the device is recognised, by doing this from a console:

 

su (enter root password when prompted)
fdisk -l

 

that's a lower case L. If you have a hard disk installed, chances are this will be /dev/sda, and so the USB stick would normally be /dev/sdb. Please post the results from the above command, so we can try to help. I have seen problems with 4GB USB sticks not mounting under Linux, but that was about a year ago when I noticed that. 1GB or 2GB are mounting OK, sometimes it's just the 4GB's that are problematic.

 

PS: welcome to the forum

[lonewolfonline]

Thanks Ian

 

I have just got my ZTE modem working so I am online, just can't download much at the moment (1GB/month and I already downloaded Mandriva!)

 

I also managed to download, extract and install Firefox 3 which I'm quite chuffed about!

 

Here are the results from fdisk

 

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0334f5f5

  Device Boot	  Start		 End	  Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *		   1	   10198	81915403+   5  Extended
/dev/sda2		   10199	   30402   162275328	7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda5			   1		1019	 8185054+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6			1020		1528	 4088511   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7			1529	   10198	69641743+  83  Linux

 

I tried mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb and get mount: special device /dev/sdb1 does not exist.and I tried all letters upto sdg1 all with the same.

 

ls /dev/s shows

sda		 sda7		shm/		snapshot	st1
sda1		sequencer   slamr0	  snd/		stderr
sda2		sequencer2  slamr1	  sr0		 stdin
sda5		sg0		 slusb0	  sr1		 stdout
sda6		sg1		 slusb1	  st0		 systty

 

 

Thanks again

 

Tim

Edited September 10, 2008 by lonewolfonline

[ianw1974]

With firefox, you could go into the install packages app and install Firefox from the Mandriva repositories - it would save downloading and extracting a file. Or from the command line with:

 

urpmi firefox3

 

for example, or replace firefox3 with whatever package name you wish to install. You can also search for packages, either in the gui tool or from command line to see if it's available, before downloading and compiling from source or extracting tarballs of already compiled programs like firefox.

 

Anyway, based on the info above, I don't see your USB stick attached to your system. This looks more like your internal hard disk that has a Windows and Linux installation on it.

[lonewolfonline]

How do I get the flash drive recognised? It shows up in KInfoCenter

 

 

If I unplug the stick this element disappears, when I plug it back in it reappears - deffinatly the correct entry. Just need the dev name or something.

 

Thanks

[ianw1974]

As I said, whilst your seeing some hardware recognition, you're not getting it fully recognised - this is as I mentioned - 4GB sticks can be problematic. If you have a 1GB stick, connect it and if this works, then you know for sure there is problems with your system detecting the 4GB stick. I too also have had this problem, and I don't have a 4GB stick right now to check it myself.

 

Now, what we can do is check this from command prompt:

 

su (enter root password when prompted)
lsmod | grep -i usb

 

as I want to see what kernel modules are loaded. Do this for when the stick is connected, and when it's not connected. Also, when you connect the stick, again, su to root again like I mentioned above, and then provide me with a dmesg to see the entries of just as you plugged it in until the end of the log. I think this is what you gave before, and if so, it looks like the usb-storage module is not staying loaded, because it probably doesn't like your usb stick. If you do test with a 1GB and get success, then we know why it's happening. As for getting it fixed, we might have to wait for a later kernel release, or Mandriva 2009 to come out.

[ianw1974]

One more idea, give me a:

 

lsusb -vv

 

for this device when it's connected. This has to be done after using su as well to get the correct privileges. I need some more info to google and check on this.

[lonewolfonline]

Hi Ian, Thanks for the help. Unfortunately I do not have any other USB sticks to test, but I will try and borrow one to test.

 

Below are the results for lsmod | grep -i usb when the stick is connected.

 

[lonewolf@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost lonewolf]# lsmod | grep -i usb
usbtouchscreen		  9988  0
usbmouse				4896  0
usbhid				 41056  1 usbmouse
ff_memless			  5544  1 usbhid
usbserial			  30696  3
usbcore			   122444  10 usbtouchscreen,usbmouse,usbhid,uvcvideo,wacom,usbserial,uhci_hcd,ohci_hcd,ehci_h
cd
[root@localhost lonewolf]#

 

With the device disconnected:

[root@localhost lonewolf]# lsmod | grep -i usb
usbtouchscreen		  9988  0
usbmouse				4896  0
usbhid				 41056  1 usbmouse
ff_memless			  5544  1 usbhid
usbserial			  30696  3
usbcore			   122444  10 usbtouchscreen,usbmouse,usbhid,uvcvideo,wacom,usbserial,uhci_hcd,ohci_hcd,ehci_h
cd
[root@localhost lonewolf]#

 

Connected again after exiting console, re-opening and su.

 

[root@localhost lonewolf]# lsmod | grep -i usb
usbtouchscreen		  9988  0
usbmouse				4896  0
usbhid				 41056  1 usbmouse
ff_memless			  5544  1 usbhid
usbserial			  30696  3
usbcore			   122444  10 usbtouchscreen,usbmouse,usbhid,uvcvideo,wacom,usbserial,uhci_hcd,ohci_hcd,ehci_h
cd
[root@localhost lonewolf]#

 

And the full output from dmesg:

 

[root@localhost lonewolf]# dmesg |tail -n 15
usb 1-8.1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi3 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 12
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
usbcore: deregistering interface driver usb-storage
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
usb-storage: device found at 12
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
usbcore: deregistering interface driver usb-storage
[root@localhost lonewolf]#

 

lsusb -vv gives me too much info and scrolls past the console buffer. How do I direct output to a text file?

 

 

Thanks again,

 

Tim

[scarecrow]

Not a plain fdisk- read again what Ian suggested:

fdisk -l

or maybe, even better, run the above command in a root console.

Now you must also have some /dev/sdb enties when the USB stick is plugged.

If you are still unable to access it, make sure your user is a member of the "storage" group (I think it's called storage in Mandriva- or not)?

Edited September 10, 2008 by scarecrow

[lonewolfonline]

Don't know if this helps or not, but my system crashed when I closed the laptop lid. I rebooted the system with the flash drive plugged in, but not the ZTE modem, and there on the desktop was the flash drive icon. I was also able to install the ndiswrapper driver for my wireless card, but now the ZTE won't connect at all, just hangs on "please wait". Also the "start" menu has changed - its more "vista" than it was before the crash. I don't know what's going on here... Maybe another problem.

 

Anyway, the flash drive seems to be working now, I'll play around and try to fix the modem.

 

Thanks for the help

 

Regards

Tim

[mindwave]

now that you have it recognized my advice comes a little late, but 2 things I would have suggested would be:

 

check your 3g-ntfs installation and make sure its in there.

 

the other thing is, from the termnial type df enter and see what it shows?

 

typically you would get ANOTHER SDX representation, as opposed to an HDX representation (like a traditional HD)

 

just in case you have other issues.

 

your modem is it USB or pcmcia or built in?

 

I had GREAT luck with my modems and wireless cards using the following site:

 

http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/?PHPS...84da5dfefb7767e

 

its basically an app that automatically configures your NDISWARPPER for modems and eternet cards, but I hadTERRIBLE times trying to do it myself.

 

The best part is that the applicatiion binds itself to your cards hardware, meaning your $20 isnt wasted. I've used mine on 3 different laptops that I use my pcmcia card in and even have it installed in an MCNL remaster

[scarecrow]

check your 3g-ntfs installation and make sure its in there.

What for? Pendrives are vfat formatted, not ntfs.

Maybe he had the idea to add an fstab entry for the removable drives? If so, then hal will not be able to automount them (different mountpoint).

What's the output of "cat /etc/fstab" please, lonewolfonline?

And- configuring ndiswrapper either from console or the Mandy GUI is really trivial, unless one has "upgraded" to ndiswrapper 1.53, which is badly broken.

[arctic]

Maybe it is related, maybe not... but after updating my Mandriva-box this day, I am also unable to mount any USB-sticks. It tells me in my case that the partitions are not valid and possibly corrupt. The sticks do mount fine in debian and Windows XP though... Maybe a bug? I am still elaborating this.

[kfoss]

I've had spotty success with Mandriva mounting USB sticks. Sometimes it works perfectly allowing me the insert and see the contents and allowing me to "Safely Remove" the sticks afterwards. I've noticed that from time to time I get an error when trying to access these sticks that KMediaManager is not running. I've seen no indication of a crashed or hung up application. To fix this I reboot and it works for a while again.

[arctic]

Well, in my case I found out that the sticks do mount fine in Mandriva, using Gnome, but that the devices are not mounted automatically anymore (=no pop-up icon if device is mounted). I have to mount them using the gnome-mount-applet (why is there a © by canonical btw? I thought the applet existed already for a long time, irrespective of canonical...)

 

The funny thing is that the devices do not get automounted in Debian now either. And Debian has - on my box - SERIOUS problems with mounting and unmounting devices. Since they switched from hdx to sdx in lenny, everything is a real mess. But that's a different topic.