# [SOLVED] USB drive fails to mount...

## slackline

Hi,

I've a USB drive that doesn't want to play ball.

Power it on and the 'active' light is on, yet there is no disk activity.  Upon plugging the USB port in I get the following from dmesg....

```

usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 9

usb 1-5: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

scsi5 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices

usb 1-5: New USB device found, idVendor=059f, idProduct=0641

usb 1-5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3

usb 1-5: Product: LaCie HardDrive USB

usb 1-5: Manufacturer: LaCie

usb 1-5: SerialNumber: 10000E000B31270E

usb-storage: device found at 9

usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning

usb 1-5: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 9

usb 1-5: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 9

usb 1-5: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 9

usb 1-5: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 9

usb 1-5: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 9

scsi 5:0:0:0: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery

usb-storage: device scan complete

```

So it looks to me like there are some errors on the HD that are preventing it from being mounted.

Forcing fsck is impossible since there are no device nodes under /dev/sd* any suggestions on how to recover this would be very much appreciated.

Cheers

slack

----------

## Malvineous

Those errors are not disk errors, they're USB errors.  The disk is probably fine, it's a problem with (in order of likelihood) the USB cable, the USB connectors, the USB root port/hub, a broken USB device controller or a dodgy host controller.

Try a different cable in a different USB port and see if it makes a difference.  Insert the plug quickly and firmly, don't wiggle it in and out slowly, as in my experience dodgy electrical contacts like that can produce this issue.  You could also try plugging it in *before* connecting power to the disk, if it's a model with external power.

----------

## slackline

Hi,

Okay, cool will try this out.  The disk actually hung whilst connected to a NSLU2 which was providing NFS shares, and mounting the NFS shares hung so I killed the process on the computer with Ctrl+C, then went to the NSLU2 and power-ed it off using the button, but the external HD sat there with the active light on.  The reported error messages are from having powered the HD down, disconnected it and plugged it into the computer which was trying to mount the NFS.  I've tried only one USB port/cable but have tried different sequences of power-on, plug-in USB/Plug in USB, power on.

Cheers for the suggestions, will try them out when I get home.  Any one with any more info is more than welcome to contribute   :Smile: 

slack

----------

## slackline

Okay, got home last night after shutting the main computer to which the USB drive was attached down before leaving work (a gap of around six hours).  When I got home the activity light on the drive had changed (from yellowish tinge it was stuck on to red which indicates that read/write is occuring, although its normally flashing from green to red when doing this).  Booted the computer and to my joy the drive (and its partitions) were detected and mounted so I unmounted the partitions, unplugged the drive and moved back over to my NSLU2 and rebooted it (this drive was acting as an external drive for the NSLU2).

Unfortunately no dice, the drive wasn't detected, no matter what USB port or cable I used or sequence of plugging in the USB before/after powering it on.  I get the same error message, and the activity light is stuck on the yellowish colour.

Unplugged it and moved it back to the desktop computer and tried innumerable times to get it to mount, but no joy, same error message as I first reported.  I gave up and went to bed, but on a hunch turned the computer off, but left the HD plugged in via USB and with the power supply on.

I get up this morning and again the activity light has changed and I can mount it on my main computer no problem.  This time I decided that whilst it was playing ball I'd run fsck on the partitions, and this showed that one partition was missing a 'lost+found' directory which I allowed to be recreated.

I could read and write to the drive without any problem, so I duly unmounted and moved it over the NSLU2 which was already running (off the flash install) and without unplugging the USB drive connected it to the NSLU2 and it was auto-detected and mounted fine.  "Great" I thought, we're already, so I shutdown the NSLU2 to ensure the drive was unmounted correctly, unplugged the USB drive and moved the power cables around so that they were out of the way and powered the HD back up only to have the yellowish light appear, the drive won't mount on the NSLU2 or the desktop again   :Confused: 

Based on Malvineous' assertion that this is a hardware problem I think the most likely explanation is that the USB controller or power connection (checked cable is firmly seated repeatedly btw) on the HD is dying (slowly!), but if anyone has any recommendations I'd be very grateful (and thanks for reading all of this!)

slack

P.S. - Current plan is leaving it plugged into the NSLU2 which is turned off to see if the drive will magicaly wake-up of its own accord and allow booting/mounting as it has done on the desktop.

----------

## slackline

 *slack---line wrote:*   

> P.S. - Current plan is leaving it plugged into the NSLU2 which is turned off to see if the drive will magicaly wake-up of its own accord and allow booting/mounting as it has done on the desktop.

 

...and after 20 minutes (meant to submit this post before I left the house this morning!) the light went orange (indicating inactive) I powered up the NSLU2 and it booted from the external HD   :Very Happy: 

That said I don't think I'll be trusting it and will be looking at getting a new enclosure (and perhaps a new HD too as a new version of SlugOS is due for release).

Cheers for the pointers on hardware problems.

slack

----------

## slackline

Annoyingly I was a lazy cheapskate and didn't replace the HD and this has re-occurred with the same drive after a power-cut last night.

The HD is detected over USB...

```

# lsusb -v

Bus 001 Device 007: ID 059f:0641 LaCie, Ltd Mobile Hard Drive

Device Descriptor:

  bLength                18

  bDescriptorType         1

  bcdUSB               2.00

  bDeviceClass            0 (Defined at Interface level)

  bDeviceSubClass         0 

  bDeviceProtocol         0 

  bMaxPacketSize0        64

  idVendor           0x059f LaCie, Ltd

  idProduct          0x0641 Mobile Hard Drive

  bcdDevice            0.00

  iManufacturer           1 LaCie

  iProduct                2 LaCie HardDrive USB

  iSerial                 3 10000E000B31270E

  bNumConfigurations      1

  Configuration Descriptor:

    bLength                 9

    bDescriptorType         2

    wTotalLength           32

    bNumInterfaces          1

    bConfigurationValue     1

    iConfiguration          0 

    bmAttributes         0xc0

      Self Powered

    MaxPower                2mA

    Interface Descriptor:

      bLength                 9

      bDescriptorType         4

      bInterfaceNumber        0

      bAlternateSetting       0

      bNumEndpoints           2

      bInterfaceClass         8 Mass Storage

      bInterfaceSubClass      6 SCSI

      bInterfaceProtocol     80 Bulk (Zip)

      iInterface              0 

      Endpoint Descriptor:

        bLength                 7

        bDescriptorType         5

        bEndpointAddress     0x81  EP 1 IN

        bmAttributes            2

          Transfer Type            Bulk

          Synch Type               None

          Usage Type               Data

        wMaxPacketSize     0x0200  1x 512 bytes

        bInterval               0

      Endpoint Descriptor:

        bLength                 7

        bDescriptorType         5

        bEndpointAddress     0x02  EP 2 OUT

        bmAttributes            2

          Transfer Type            Bulk

          Synch Type               None

          Usage Type               Data

        wMaxPacketSize     0x0200  1x 512 bytes

        bInterval               0

Device Qualifier (for other device speed):

  bLength                10

  bDescriptorType         6

  bcdUSB               2.00

  bDeviceClass            0 (Defined at Interface level)

  bDeviceSubClass         0 

  bDeviceProtocol         0 

  bMaxPacketSize0        64

  bNumConfigurations      1

Device Status:     0x0001

  Self Powered

```

But not properly...

```

usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 7

usb 1-5: New USB device found, idVendor=059f, idProduct=0641

usb 1-5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3

usb 1-5: Product: LaCie HardDrive USB

usb 1-5: Manufacturer: LaCie

usb 1-5: SerialNumber: 10000E000B31270E

usb 1-5: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices

usb-storage: device found at 7

usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning

usb 1-5: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 7

usb 1-5: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 7

usb 1-5: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 7

usb 1-5: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 7

usb 1-5: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 7

scsi 4:0:0:0: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery

usb-storage: device scan complete

```

Hopefully it will start again on its own, but any tips or pointers on how to encourage it to play ball would be appreciated (NB - tried on two different computers and different USB ports on both, but no joy).

Hoping it will right itself, but I do have a spare external HD casing I could try it in in case its the USB controller thats borked.

slack

----------

## slackline

Okay, sorted this out by taking the HD out and placing it in a new (well second-hand) caddy with a different USB controller.

Problem Solved   :Very Happy: 

slack

----------

