[SOLVED] USB Key and CF Card

[zeroth]

I've got a rather peculiar situation. I can mount my 1gb USB key and access it just fine, but if I then try to mount my CF card (with a SanDisk ImageMate CF Reader) it complains about an incorrect file system type. If I reboot, I can mount my CF card just fine, but then if I unmount it and try to mount my USB Stick, it complains.

I cant mount one and then the other. in order to mount one after mounting and unmounting the other, I have to reboot.

I can post dmesg output if its neccessary. both cards use the same fstab line:
/dev/sda1, /mnt/key vfat noauto,umask=0,user,iocharset=iso8859-1,sync,codepage=850 0 0

I've tried sda2, sda3, and other devices...

any ideas?

[zeroth]

if you don't feel like reading that whole thing, the bottom line is this question:

I can't mount my usb stick after mounting my CompactFlash card, and vice versa. how do I fix this?

[retsaw]

I'm just guessing, but it might be a bug in the usb mass storage driver. Try using a newer kernel version to see if it fixes the problem.

However, first try mounting the drive manually with "mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/key" not specifying the filesystem type, if that doesn't work try it including the filesystem type "mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/key".

[cybertron]

Have you checked your dmesg output? Is the device you plug in second being detected correctly and assigned a /dev/sd* device? I've had some weird problems with USB devices randomly refusing to connect properly. Still haven't figured out why, although in my case I think it's related to a USB hub and unplugging that and then reattaching it fixes the problem for me.

[zeroth]

it doesn't matter how I mount either. I've never mounded my CF card as /dev/cf, always mounted as /dev/sda1.

1.) I'm not using a USB hub.

2.) This is a laptop, and has only one USB port.

3.) I mount with "mount -t vfat /mnt/key /dev/sda1" for both devices.

4.) I don't need to speficy vfat when mounting either (at least my USB Stick)

5.) after mounting and umounting one device, plugging in another and trying to mount it without specifying a file system will confuse the systen and it tells me to specify a filesystem. If i do specify a filesystem at this point, it complains about a bad superblock or something (which is incorrect)

[cybertron]

But did you check dmesg to make sure that it's being recognized properly?

[DrChuck]

3.) I mount with "mount -t vfat /mnt/key /dev/sda1" for both devices.
Depending on the order in which you mount the usb drives, they will be assigned to different devices. The first one, say the CF reader, will be /dev/sda, and the second ( USB stick) will probably be /dev/sdb. There is no way that both devices can simultaneously be assigned to /dev/sda. So please follow cybertron's advice: Mount the first USB device, plug in the second, and check dmesg.

drChuck

[soulestream]

) This is a laptop, and has only one USB port.


Mount the first USB device, plug in the second, and check dmesg.


he only has one USB port


you might need to check udev rules or make custom entries for each device. If they have different filesystems you would think the system could figure out which one

soule

[zeroth]

I've figured it out.

if I mount one as /dev/sda1, then I must mount the other as /dev/sdb1.

I was silly and tried /dev/sda2 adter trying /dev/sda1. but hadn't considered the above.

thank you all!


edit:

how do I mark this thread as solved? ...or does an moderator do that?

[bwkaz]

We almost always are the ones that do that. :)

With the older version of vBulletin that we were running up until recently, if only one post existed in the thread, you could change the title yourself. If there were any more posts, a mod had to change the title. I'm not sure if that still holds with the upgrade that happened.