# USB Storage Drive Not Recognised

## cniall

I often need to use a USB drive to store data, but for some reason I can't get Gentoo to recognise it; I plug it in and it lights up as it should, but nothing new appears in /mnt or /media. I did a search on Google which suggested enabling the various SCSI drivers in the kernel, which I have done already to no avail. Does anybody have any ideas?

Here's the output of lspci and rc-update show (which seem to be a common theme in helping people offer solutions) and if you need any more information just say:

```
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Clarksfield/Lynnfield DMI (rev 11)

00:03.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Clarksfield/Lynnfield PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 11)

00:08.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Clarksfield/Lynnfield System Management Registers (rev 11)

00:08.1 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Clarksfield/Lynnfield Semaphore and Scratchpad Registers (rev 11)

00:08.2 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Clarksfield/Lynnfield System Control and Status Registers (rev 11)

00:08.3 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Clarksfield/Lynnfield Miscellaneous Registers (rev 11)

00:10.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation QPI Link (rev 11)

00:10.1 System peripheral: Intel Corporation QPI Routing and Protocol Registers (rev 11)

00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 05)

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak High Definition Audio (rev 05)

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 05)

00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev 05)

00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 05)

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev a5)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak LPC Interface Controller (rev 05)

00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak 4 port SATA IDE Controller (rev 05)

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak SMBus Controller (rev 05)

00:1f.5 IDE interface: Intel Corporation Ibex Peak 2 port SATA IDE Controller (rev 05)

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GT200 [GeForce GTX 260] (rev a1)

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 03)

03:00.0 SATA controller: JMicron Technology Corp. 20360/20363 Serial ATA Controller (rev 03)

03:00.1 IDE interface: JMicron Technology Corp. 20360/20363 Serial ATA Controller (rev 03)
```

```
          alsasound | boot                          

            bootmisc | boot                          

             checkfs | boot                          

           checkroot | boot                          

               clock | boot                          

         consolefont | boot                          

                hald |      default                  

            hostname | boot                          

             keymaps | boot                          

               local |      default nonetwork        

          localmount | boot                          

             metalog |      default                  

             modules | boot                          

            net.eth0 |      default                  

              net.lo | boot                          

            netmount |      default                  

           rmnologin | boot                          

             urandom | boot                          

          vixie-cron |      default                  
```

----------

## bobspencer123

can you post the output (the last few lines) of dmesg after you plug in the usb device.

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## cniall

Not a problem:

```
[  237.117644] hub 1-1:1.0: state 7 ports 6 chg 0000 evt 0008

[  237.117859] hub 1-1:1.0: port 3, status 0101, change 0001, 12 Mb/s

[  237.221490] hub 1-1:1.0: debounce: port 3: total 100ms stable 100ms status 0x101

[  237.232481] hub 1-1:1.0: port 3 not reset yet, waiting 10ms

[  237.294495] usb 1-1.3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6

[  237.305470] hub 1-1:1.0: port 3 not reset yet, waiting 10ms

[  237.380341] usb 1-1.3: default language 0x0409

[  237.382341] usb 1-1.3: udev 6, busnum 1, minor = 5

[  237.382344] usb 1-1.3: New USB device found, idVendor=13fe, idProduct=3100

[  237.382348] usb 1-1.3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3

[  237.382352] usb 1-1.3: Product: USB DISK 2.0

[  237.382355] usb 1-1.3: Manufacturer:         

[  237.382358] usb 1-1.3: SerialNumber: 0791014AB255

[  237.382435] usb 1-1.3: uevent

[  237.382447] usb 1-1.3: usb_probe_device

[  237.382449] usb 1-1.3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

[  237.382675] usb 1-1.3: adding 1-1.3:1.0 (config #1, interface 0)

[  237.382689] usb 1-1.3:1.0: uevent

[  237.382703] usb-storage 1-1.3:1.0: usb_probe_interface

[  237.382707] usb-storage 1-1.3:1.0: usb_probe_interface - got id

[  237.382903] scsi6 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices

[  237.382972] usb-storage: device found at 6

[  237.382973] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning

[  237.382987] drivers/usb/core/inode.c: creating file '006'

[  237.383074] usb 1-1.3: uevent

[  242.423659] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access              USB DISK 2.0     PMAP PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS

[  242.425201] sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0

[  243.784643] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 7823360 512-byte logical blocks: (4.00 GB/3.73 GiB)

[  243.785177] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off

[  243.785182] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00

[  243.785185] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through

[  243.785526] usb-storage: device scan complete

[  245.929695] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through

[  245.929700]  sdb: sdb1

[  245.966426] usb 1-1.3:1.0: uevent

[  245.966496] usb 1-1.3: uevent

[  245.966800] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through

[  245.966802] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk

[  245.967381] usb 1-1.3:1.0: uevent
```

----------

## bobspencer123

looks like your system is recognizing the drive you now need to mount it:

create a directory in /media or /home or something

so for example /home/usbdrive

$ mkdir /home/usbdrive

then mount it

# mount -t auto /dev/sdb1 /home/usbdrive

if auto doesn't work then specify the file system type: i.e. ext3, ext4, xfs, etc... if its a windows ntfs drive I would install ntfs-3g and then use that for type.

if that works then create an entry in fstab. Post if you need help with that.

----------

## cniall

Thanks, I'll try that as soon as I boot into Gentoo again. I didn't realise that the drive would have to (before making an fstab entry, at least) be manually mounted. Again, thanks.

----------

## tuam

Are you using a graphical desktop? Which? Some of them might recognize plugged in devices.

FF,

Daniel

----------

## bobspencer123

 *cniall wrote:*   

> Thanks, I'll try that as soon as I boot into Gentoo again. I didn't realise that the drive would have to (before making an fstab entry, at least) be manually mounted. Again, thanks.

 

well it doesn't have to be manually mounted before making an appropriate fstab entry ... but manually mounting is useful to make sure whatever your fstab entry is going to be will work. 

Also, the last poster is right ... I use xfce4 and have use hal and fuse to mount usb devices through thunar. I personally like this route for usb devices. When I plug them in thunar shows a new device in the left panel and it is shaded out. I click on the new device and it is mounted automagically under /media (usually) by fuse. No fstab entry required. But, some like more control over there devices and such and want to manually control mountpoint and when to mount.

----------

## cniall

I use fluxbox, but I've not gotten around to installing any file manager yet (I'll probably get Thunar when I need it); it seems easier in a way to go with the fstab entry, but since there are two USB ports on the front of my computer (and myriad on the back that I never use) would I need to make two entries -- on as sdb1 and the other sdb2?

----------

## bobspencer123

I would make an entry based on the UUID of the drive because with USB drives you can have dynamic naming of /dev devices. To get uuid just do:

ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/

then in fstab you replace /dev/sdx with UUID=whatever-the-uuid-is

----------

