1gb usb mem not usable in debian

[happybunny]

evening:

Weird issue with debian and a new 1gb mem stick.

Stick supports USB1.1 and USB2. /proc/bus/usb/devices lists Ver=1.10, which i think is the usb version.

No doubt memory stick works...works on XP, slax on different systems, and slax on box in question.

I have a 256Meg stick that works fine on this system.

fdisk shows:

/dev/sda1 * 1 3920 1003504 b w95 fat32

dmesg shows:

SCSI device sda: 2007040 512-byte hdwr sectors (1028 MB)
sda: assuming Write Enabled
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: [CUMANA/ADFS] p1<5>Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378384
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378385
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378386
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378387
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378388
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378389
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378390
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378391
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378392
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378393
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378394
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378395
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378396
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378397
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378398
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378399
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378384

Issue is:

mount -t vfat (or auto)/dev/sda1 /media/usb

returns "wrong filesystem type or bad option or bad superblock"

Before i try and fdisk this with the debian system, anyone have any thoughts as to why this would happen?

[nevin180]

It sounds like its some sort of filesystem corruption... maybe you unplugged before unmounting? I'd just reformat the stick.

[happybunny]

well, i tried that.

I removed all data, put stick in and fdisk'd it.

I did not know how to format it via linux fat, so i put it in xp and formated it fat16, but that made no difference.

Is there a way to format it in linux for vfat?

[nevin180]

Try (as root):
mkfs -t vfat /dev/sda1

assuming the stick shows up as sda1.

[sharth]

you might need fdtools installed (for the formatting)... debian also has shortcuts to all the filesystems that are available to create if you do mkfs (tab) (tab) (assuming you're in bash or sh or something like that)

:edit: No, whopps. the package needed is "dosfstools"