USB Drives

[Ruler2112]

I use RedHat 7.3 at work. When I got a USB drive several months ago, I just entered a line in the fstab, and use mount /dev/sda1 to mount the drive, do what I need to, then unmount it and pull it out. Works like a charm - no drivers needed.

However, now I'm in a quandry. I've gotten more USB drives to use, both of the same model and of different models. Whenever I attempt to mount anything but the one I originally mounted, I get a 'no medium found' message and the drive isn't mounted. Given that there was no setup to tell it was specific model or ID was hooked up, and that this happens with drives identical to the one I'm able to successfully use, what's the problem?

Anybody have any ideas?

[QCompson]

Sounds frustrating... have you tried using the "rescan -scsi-bus.sh"(linux1394.org) script to see if the drives are detected on plug-in?

[Ruler2112]

It is frustrating and I have not used that script. However, I do have some more information which answers whether they're detected when I plug them in. (And it turns out they are.)

I exited out of XWindows and tried mounting the drives after logging out and back in again. I got the following messages - I'm guessing they were caught by xWin before, so I didn't see them. Anybody recognize them?

//I have one mounted and plug in the second
[jim@Valhalla jim]$ usb.c: USB device not accepting new address=2 (error=-32)
usb.c: USB device not accepting new address=3 (error=-32)
//Make sure the first is still mounted - it is
[jim@Valhalla jim]$ mount /dev/sda1
mount: /dev/sda1 already mounted or /mnt/usbdrive busy
mount: according to mtab, /dev/sda1 is already mounted on /mnt/usbdrive
//Try to mount the second
[jim@Valhalla jim]$ mount /dev/sda2
mount: /dev/sda2 is not a valid block device
//Unmount the first
[jim@Valhalla jim]$ umount /dev/sda1
//Unplugged the first and tried mounting the second as it's now the only one plugged in
[jim@Valhalla jim]$ mount /dev/sda1
sda : READ CAPACITY failed.
sda : status = 1, message = 00, host = 0, driver = 08
Info fld=0xa00 (nonstd), Current sd00:00: sense key Not Ready
sda : block size assumed to be 512 bytes, disk size 1GB.
 I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 0
 unable to read partition table
sda : READ CAPACITY failed.
sda : status = 1, message = 00, host = 0, driver = 08
Info fld=0xa00 (nonstd), Current sd00:00: sense key Not Ready
sda : block size assumed to be 512 bytes, disk size 1GB.
 I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 0
 unable to read partition table
mount: No medium found
[jim@Valhalla jim]$

I can mount either USB drive, but once I do, I cannot mount any others until I reboot the system - logging out and back in won't do it. Dunno why, but I'm guessing it's something missing in the USB implementation of RH7.3. Can anybody confirm or deny this? Better yet, how the heck do I fix it?

[Ruler2112]

OK, I've discovered a workaround, but more importantly, isolated where the problem lies. I've googled and have found people who have had similar problems, but nobody had a solution (other than for an unrelated issue that happened to produce a similar error). Maybe somebody knows of a fix?

I plug in a USB drive, mount it, use it as I want, and unmount it. When I want to use another, I su -l to become root, then 'rmmod usb-storage' and immediately thereafter 'insmod usb-storage'. I can then plug in a USB drive (*any* USB drive) and use it normally. When I want to use a different physical drive, I have to repeat - remove the usb-storage module from the kernel and add it again. It works, but it's very inconvenient and clunky.

[QCompson]

That is clunky, but at least you found a workaround. I experienced a similar problem when I was fooling around with a firewire device. Do you know if this is just found in 7.3? Perhaps you could bump up to 9.0 or fedora core.

[Ruler2112]

I've thought about upgrading when I get time, but that's in short supply around here. (This is my work machine.) We're getting a new phone system, new CRM software system, and I've got even more PCs to build yet - I've put together and installed 40 since mid-december. Maybe later this summer when things settle down ( ) I'll upgrade.