[SOLVED] USB Unhappiness

[youngtomedison]

Got a problem.

With other Linux distros which I've used (Debian, Ubuntu and OpenSuse), my Western Digital "My Book" external hard drive appeared on my KDE desktop only a few seconds after I turned it on.

With Vector, it's a bit more complicated.

When I connect and turn on the external HD, nothing happens. The drive doesn't show up. I cannot find it.

I tried logging in as root to see what would happen.

While logged in as root, I connected and turned on the external HD. It showed up immediately.

Obviously, I need to make some adjustments so that I can access my external hard drives as a normal user.

What I need to know is, what do I need to adjust and how do I do it?

I'm using VL SOHO version 5.8 final with the KDE interface.

[bigpaws]

Your post indicates a permission problem.

What is needed is to find the mount point open a console
and the type

dmesg | grep hd

This will get you list of devices please post the output that
may indicate your hardware.

If you can identify the hardware you can use in the console

(example) ls -la /dev/hda

Post that output and then we can get your permissions right.

HTH

Bigpaws

[Joe1962]

USB drives should show up on the desktop correctly. If you haven't updated to the latest version ov vl-hot from the patches repo you should try that. Some standard diagnostics for USB drive problems are:

1 - open a console/terminal and leave the following command running: tail -f /var/log/messages
- turn on the drive, wait a couple of seconds for it to spin up, then plug it in.
- wait for the messages to finish, then paste them in this thread

2 - in a root console, run: fdisk -l
- (note that is a lowercase L) before and after plugging in the drive.
- paste both here (only if different)

[youngtomedison]

USB drives should show up on the desktop correctly. If you haven't updated to the latest version ov vl-hot from the patches repo you should try that. Some standard diagnostics for USB drive problems are:

1 - open a console/terminal and leave the following command running: tail -f /var/log/messages
- turn on the drive, wait a couple of seconds for it to spin up, then plug it in.
- wait for the messages to finish, then paste them in this thread

2 - in a root console, run: fdisk -l
- (note that is a lowercase L) before and after plugging in the drive.
- paste both here (only if different)

Here are the outputs from fdisk -l:

FDISK: External drive on:

vector://home/doctor-b
root:# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1         243     1951866   82  Linux swap
/dev/hda2             244        2067    14651280   83  Linux
/dev/hda3            2068        9729    61545015   83  Linux

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

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1       30401   244196001    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
vector://home/doctor-b
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
FDISK - Ext drive off:

vector://home/doctor-b
root:# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1         243     1951866   82  Linux swap
/dev/hda2             244        2067    14651280   83  Linux
/dev/hda3            2068        9729    61545015   83  Linux
vector://home/doctor-b

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Here is the output from tail -f /var/log/messages after turning on external hard drive:

You are working as doctor-b
Frequently used programs:
Configuration  : vasm
File manager   : mc (press F2 for useful menu)
Editor         : mcedit, vi
Multimedia     : alsamixer, play
vector:/~
doctor-b:$ tail -f /var/log/messages
Dec 11 10:12:23 vector vl-hot_umount: mountbase: sda
Dec 11 10:12:23 vector vl-hot_umount: volname: vol
Dec 11 10:12:23 vector vl-hot_umount: /mnt/vl-hot/sda/vol
Dec 11 10:12:23 vector vl-hot_umount: /mnt/vl-hot/sda/vol not mounted, deleting /mnt/vl-hot/sda/vol and desktop icons
Dec 11 10:12:23 vector vl-hot_umount: Deleting desktop file vl-hot-sda-vol.desktop
Dec 11 10:12:23 vector vl-hot_umount: No partitions remaining, rmdir /mnt/vl-hot/sda/
Dec 11 10:12:23 vector vl-hot_umount: Finishing vl-umount...
Dec 11 10:12:45 vector kernel: usb 1-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
Dec 11 10:12:45 vector kernel: usb 1-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Dec 11 10:12:45 vector kernel: scsi3 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector kernel: scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access     WD       2500BB External  0108 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector kernel: SCSI device sda: 488397168 512-byte hdwr sectors (250059 MB)
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector kernel: sda: Write Protect is off
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector kernel: SCSI device sda: 488397168 512-byte hdwr sectors (250059 MB)
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector kernel: sda: Write Protect is off
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector kernel:  sda: sda1
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sda
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector vl-hot_mount: Starting vl-hot_mount...
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector vl-hot_mount: devname: sda
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector vl-hot_mount: volname: vol
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector vl-hot_mount: Mounting /dev/vl-hot/sda on /mnt/vl-hot/sda/vol
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector vl-hot_mount: /dev/vl-hot/sda not mountable (MBR) ...
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector vl-hot_mount: Finishing vl-hot_mount...
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector vl-hot_mount: Starting vl-hot_mount...
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector vl-hot_mount: devname: sda1
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector vl-hot_mount: volname: vol1
Dec 11 10:12:50 vector vl-hot_mount: Mounting /dev/vl-hot/sda1 on /mnt/vl-hot/sda/vol1
Dec 11 10:12:51 vector vl-hot_mount: /dev/vl-hot/sda1 Filesystem is FAT32
Dec 11 10:12:51 vector vl-hot_mount: mounting FAT32 filesystem: /dev/vl-hot/sda1 on /mnt/vl-hot/sda/vol1
Dec 11 10:12:51 vector vl-hot_mount: Showing desktop file vl-hot-sda-vol1.desktop
Dec 11 10:12:51 vector vl-hot_mount: Finishing vl-hot_mount...

++++++++++++++++++++

[youngtomedison]

Your post indicates a permission problem.

What is needed is to find the mount point open a console
and the type

dmesg | grep hd

This will get you list of devices please post the output that
may indicate your hardware.

Here is that output:

Configuration  : vasm
File manager   : mc (press F2 for useful menu)
Editor         : mcedit, vi
Multimedia     : alsamixer, play
vector:/~
doctor-b:$ dmesg | grep hd
    ide0: BM-DMA at 0xffa0-0xffa7, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0xffa8-0xffaf, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA
hda: ST380013A, ATA DISK drive
hdc: SONY CD-RW CRX320E, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdd: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-110D, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hda: max request size: 512KiB
hda: 156301488 sectors (80026 MB) w/8192KiB Cache, CHS=16383/255/63, UDMA(100)
hda: cache flushes supported
 hda: hda1 hda2 hda3
hdc: ATAPI 52X DVD-ROM CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache, UDMA(33)
hdd: ATAPI 40X DVD-ROM DVD-R CD-R/RW drive, 2000kB Cache, UDMA(66)
EXT3 FS on hda2, internal journal
Adding 1951856k swap on /dev/hda1.  Priority:-1 extents:1 across:1951856k
EXT3 FS on hda3, internal journal
e1000: eth0: e1000_watchdog: NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Full Duplex
SCSI device sda: 488397168 512-byte hdwr sectors (250059 MB)
SCSI device sda: 488397168 512-byte hdwr sectors (250059 MB)
vector:/~
doctor-b:$     

If you can identify the hardware you can use in the console

(example) ls -la /dev/hda

Post that output and then we can get your permissions right.

HTH

Bigpaws

Here is that output. Wasn't sure whether to call device SDA or SDA!, but it turned out that both designations worked:

vector:/~
doctor-b:$ ls -la /dev/sda
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 0 2007-12-11 10:25 /dev/sda
vector:/~
doctor-b:$ ls -la /dev/sda1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 1 2007-12-11 10:25 /dev/sda1
vector:/~

[Joe1962]

Heh, that was hard to read on my Forum theme, had to mark it all with the mouse first...

Well, the drive's FAT32 partition was definitely mounted and the desktop icon created. Check for the contents in /mnt/vl-hot/sda/vol1. As to why the desktop icon doesn't actually show up, I have a couple of ideas. Perhaps the desktop isn't refreshing for some reason? Try F5 a little while after plugging in the drive. Did you change /etc/sudoers? Does anybody remember if there was a sudoers bug in SOHO 5.8 final? BTW, did you upgrade to vl-hot 1.0.4?


EDIT: forget the sudoers stuff, it can't be related to that, because the partition does mount correctly.

[youngtomedison]

I uninstalled the existing version of VLHOT and installed whatever version was now in the repository. Problem solved. My drive shows up on my desktop a few seconds after I power it up.

Thank all of you for helping!

[Joe1962]

Glad your problem is fixed. The weird thing is that I seem to remember it working correctly for me after a stock 5.8 SOHO install. It did have a "bug" in vl-hot-config due to a last-minute change in the kernel config before final, but that had no effect on vl-hot itself. I can't find any previous report either so, can anyone confirm either way?