# External usb hard drive, CF cards not detctd/mntd [SOLVED]

## bag

I've had a quick look around and can't seem to find an answer on this...  so I need some help.

I've been struggling to update sys-apps/hal for a short while.  And I've now gained another problem...  in that I can't mount external devices or USB sticks or CF cards when connected to the PC.  This used to work fine - until last week. Popping a CF card into my card reader would pop up a lovely little dialogue box to ask me what I wanted to do with it... ditto when I connected USB keys or my external usb hard drive.  It was great...

I don't know what I did - although I must admit that I've been trying to get my system updated so it could be any one of all sorts of packages that I've updated.

For about two weeks now - whilst I was trying to update hal, it would fail on emerge - telling me that I must emerge pciutils with the zlib USE flag disabled.  Couldn't seem to get this to work since the latest pciutils only had one USE flag requirement - and that was zlib!  Anyway, still didn't solve it...

This evening I remembered about slots - so installed an older version of pciutils as well which doesn't require zlib and then tried to update hal.  It worked - the emerge at least, but it didn't solve the problem of not recognising or mounting my drives/cards.

So I'm stuck.  Back a few years ago, I understood all about fstab and could do some of this by hand.  Now with hal, kioslaves and whatnot, I'm struggling.  There's a load more interfaces there for me to screw up without knowing what I've done, and I'm thoroughly lost.

Your help and suggestions would be very gratefully received.

Many thanks,

Mark.

EDIT:  Apologies - running lsusb gives the following - so my Maxtor external hard drive IS detected but I can't seem to access it...

```
markh@localhost ~ $ sudo lsusb

Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 001 Device 006: ID 0d49:5000 Maxtor

Bus 001 Device 004: ID 058f:6362 Alcor Micro Corp.

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 005 Device 002: ID 03f0:2f11 Hewlett-Packard

Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

```

Any ideas?Last edited by bag on Tue Mar 27, 2007 1:46 pm; edited 1 time in total

----------

## bag

Bump.

OK, I'm still struggling with this one.  I've read through the "HOWTO D-BUS, HAL, KDE media:/" -   and it hasn't fixed it for me.  I already had everything installed.  I have followed the suggestion in the HOWTO to re-emerge kioslaves to pick up hal again but it's still not working.

What I'm getting is that with dmesg and lsusb I think I can see that the system finds and knows about the USB stuff but I can't seem to get it to show up under KDE media:/

pmounting from the CLI seems to return OK but I still can't mount/view the contents of the drive.  And so I'm stuck.

This is annoying because I really need to drag some data across to another PC by USB (it has a CD/DVD drive failure) so not being able to access my USB key and/or external hard drive on this machine is holding it all up...

Any help you can give me would be gratefully received.  Someone must know where else I can look to solve this...

Any pointers anyone?

----------

## bag

OK, so I didn't check this before (which makes me feel a bit silly) but putting a DVD into the drive does pop up a kio-slaves info box asking what I want to do with it.

So, one down - it's not really kio-slaves (at least I don't think so) - since kioslaves works for DVD's.  So now it's a problem with attaching USB sticks or external drives to the PC or putting a card into the internal card reader (which is attached to the USB header on the motherboard).

Just to recap, running lsusb at the prompt returns:

```
markh@localhost /home/markh $ sudo lsusb

Password:

Bus 005 Device 002: ID 03f0:2f11 Hewlett-Packard

Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 001 Device 010: ID 08ec:0020 M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0d49:5000 Maxtor

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 001 Device 004: ID 058f:6362 Alcor Micro Corp.

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
```

Which shows my printer (HP), my wife's USB flash stick, my external hard drive and the Alcor (which I'm presuming is the card reader).  So it's there and attached, but not mounted etc.

Any advice?   I don't understand why upgrading any packages might make it stop working...  especially since nobody else seems to be having this problem.

----------

## bunder

2 things:

you need an fstab entry for what you plan on mounting.  otherwise kio-slaves won't kick in and ask you what to do.

did you forget mmc support in the kernel?  try looking for /dev/mmc* nodes, those are for your flash slots.  usb pendrives are typically /dev/sd*.

so i would first start off and see it the nodes are there (after inserting your devices)...

cheers

----------

## bag

It was working only a week or two ago - and I haven't upgraded the kernel.  I did try, but it failed, and so I linked back the kernel-sources, rebuilt the modules and alsa/nvidia etc and came back to my old kernel.

I honestly can't say when it stopped working - so don't know if it was that, or upgrading things like udev, hal etc that did it.

I do have /dev/sd* since my hard drives show up as sda/b etc.  I can't see any mmc* nodes - but I "think" that that may be because it's connected through a USB header directly on the motherboard.  How would it normally connect?  Most systems are external USB-connected card readers - this is similar, only it sits in the 3.5inch bay, that's all.

Any other ideas?

----------

## bunder

not sure about how it would connect... by the sounds of it, its fine.  mine is built into the laptop.

anywho, when i stick in the card, i get this in dmesg:

 *Quote:*   

> mmcblk0: mmc0:0001 SD 122624KiB
> 
>  mmcblk0: p1
> 
> 

 

and this pops up in /dev

 *Quote:*   

> $ ls -l | grep mmc
> 
> brw-rw---- 1 root disk  254,    0 Mar 17 07:27 mmcblk0
> 
> brw-rw---- 1 root disk  254,    1 Mar 17 07:27 mmcblk0p1
> ...

 

p1 is the one you want to mount.

if root sees it and your user doesn't, check to see if you're still in the disk group.  beyond that, i'm afraid i'm at a loss.   :Confused: 

----------

## bag

Bunder,

OK, I'm starting to learn loads more - but still not solving the problems....!

in dmesg, when I put in the card, I get:

```
Mar 17 14:10:18 localhost SCSI device sdf: 2014992 512-byte hdwr sectors (1032 MB)

Mar 17 14:10:18 localhost sdf: Write Protect is off

Mar 17 14:10:18 localhost sdf: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00

Mar 17 14:10:18 localhost sdf: assuming drive cache: write through

Mar 17 14:10:18 localhost SCSI device sdf: 2014992 512-byte hdwr sectors (1032 MB)

Mar 17 14:10:18 localhost sdf: Write Protect is off

Mar 17 14:10:18 localhost sdf: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00

Mar 17 14:10:18 localhost sdf: assuming drive cache: write through

Mar 17 14:10:18 localhost sdf: sdf1

```

So, then I try and look in /dev for the sdf block...

```
localhost ~ # ls -l /dev | grep sdf

brw-rw---- 1 root disk    8,   80 Mar 15 22:31 sdf

brw-rw---- 1 root disk    8,   81 Mar 17 14:10 sdf1
```

I'm still in the disk group - but I don't really understand what I am looking at - could you exlpain?

I think that I am looking at my hardware recognising that I've inserted my card into a USB-connected system, and that it shows that it's a 1GB card with write protection off.  I can also see that it seems to be there in /dev (under sdf1) - is this right?

It's just that when I execute the command:

```
localhost ~ # mount /dev/sdf1

mount: can't find /dev/sdf1 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab

```

it doesn't seem to find sdf1...

Am I looking at sdf1 being on the system but not able to connect it?

----------

## desultory

 *bag wrote:*   

> It's just that when I execute the command:
> 
> ```
> localhost ~ # mount /dev/sdf1
> 
> ...

 As bunder directed; add an entry for the device to /etc/fstab, you will probably want to give the device a persistent name, or link, using udev.

----------

## kershell

 *desultory wrote:*   

>  *bag wrote:*   It's just that when I execute the command:
> 
> ```
> localhost ~ # mount /dev/sdf1
> 
> ...

 

See the mount manpage. mount needs a device name and a mount point unless the device is listed in /etc/fstab. A mount point is simply an empty directory.

Assuming that you have made a directory /mnt/myfob. What you need to do then is 

```
mount /dev/sdf1 /mnt/myfob
```

. You might have to do this as root. To do this as a normal user you will need to list the device in /etc/fstab. As suggested earlier, have a look at udev too.

----------

## desultory

 *kershell wrote:*   

> See the mount manpage. mount needs a device name and a mount point unless the device is listed in /etc/fstab.

 In addition to man 8 mount, the format for entries in /etc/fstab is documented in man 5 fstab, which was linked to earlier.

 *kershell wrote:*   

> A mount point is simply an empty directory.

 Mount points need not be empty.

----------

## bag

Thank you everyone.

I put in some mount points into fstab and it worked a little better - for example, I was able to mount the external hard drive attached by USB.  However, flash cards inserted into my internal card reader wouldn't mount.

I finally fixed it by running a revdep-rebuild.  It had to remerge a load of applications - about 47 in all, if I remember correctly but then all worked perfectly again.

Thanks for all your help.  Problem seems solved.

----------

