usb flash drive works in 12.04 but not in 13.10

[Bucky Ball]

Sorry to barge in, but should there be a mount point created in /mnt for it, for example:

sudo mkdir /mnt/Pendrive
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/Pendrive

Not sure where this command mounts it to:

sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt

? Or am I missing something? I'm aware you are fairly expert, sudodus, so I probably am missing something.

[ortermagic]

There's some weird stuff going on here, odd bits and peices by various family members but if it makes sense to you

ortermagic@ortermagic-Centurion-CPD-1303:~$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
[sudo] password for ortermagic:
mount: /dev/sdb1 already mounted or /mnt busy
mount: according to mtab, /dev/sdb1 is already mounted on /mnt
ortermagic@ortermagic-Centurion-CPD-1303:~$ df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda6 243191836 8987108 221851312 4% /
none 4 0 4 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev 1981288 12 1981276 1% /dev
tmpfs 404856 1148 403708 1% /run
none 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
none 2024264 220 2024044 1% /run/shm
none 102400 56 102344 1% /run/user
/dev/sda5 232590304 41270172 179482180 19% /media/ortermagic/c6e29b9f-f1db-4fd3-b849-2173f4eb10b0
/dev/sdb1 15581128 7563728 8017400 49% /mnt
ortermagic@ortermagic-Centurion-CPD-1303:~$ ls -l /mnt
ortermagic@ortermagic-Centurion-CPD-1303:~$

[ortermagic]

Bucky Ball I just tried to mkdir in /mnt but the folder is still empty
yet the terminal tells me the pendrive is mounted, see below

ortermagic@ortermagic-Centurion-CPD-1303:~$ sudo mkdir /mnt/Pendrive
[sudo] password for ortermagic:
ortermagic@ortermagic-Centurion-CPD-1303:~$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/Pendrive
ortermagic@ortermagic-Centurion-CPD-1303:~$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
mount: /dev/sdb1 already mounted or /mnt busy
mount: according to mtab, /dev/sdb1 is already mounted on /mnt
ortermagic@ortermagic-Centurion-CPD-1303:~$

this is getting weird

[ortermagic]

I have just logged in to 12.04 and I find that it would appear the pendrive has been working in that distro all along
It would appear that 12.04 is leeching into 13.10 so could it be that there is an overlap causing the 13.10 terminal to be seeing the files in 12.04,
heres the output from 12.04

ortermagic@russet:~$ sudo fdisk -lu
[sudo] password for ortermagic:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00054011

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 9766911 4882432 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2 9768958 976770446 483500744+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 9768960 482631679 236431360 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 482633728 976770446 247068359+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 16.0 GB, 15971909632 bytes
100 heads, 36 sectors/track, 8665 cylinders, total 31195136 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x04030201

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 2416 31195135 15596360 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
ortermagic@russet:~$

12.04 can still read the kingston and it works as it should

[cariboo]

Usb drives should mount automatically in /media/user_name/string

where user_name is your user name, and string is generated when the device is mounted, for example on my system sdc1 is mounted to /media/cariboo/DDF3-0260.

df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1       9.5G  6.7G  2.4G  74% /
none            4.0K     0  4.0K   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev            992M  4.0K  992M   1% /dev
tmpfs           201M  2.6M  198M   2% /run
none            5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none           1001M  544K 1001M   1% /run/shm
none            100M   32K  100M   1% /run/user
/dev/sdb3       218G   72G  135G  35% /home
/dev/sdc1       3.8G  186M  3.6G   5% /media/cariboo/DDF3-0260

I always use dmesg to check if a device is mounted, if nautilus doesn't open. The output should look something like this:

dmesg | tail -n15
[ 2406.329144] scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access     SanDisk  SanDisk Cruzer   8.02 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
[ 2406.329373] sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
[ 2406.333631] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] 7913471 512-byte logical blocks: (4.05 GB/3.77 GiB)
[ 2406.334641] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
[ 2406.334644] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 45 00 00 08
[ 2406.335501] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page present
[ 2406.335504] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 2406.339024] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page present
[ 2406.339030] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 2406.343142]  sdc: sdc1
[ 2406.345895] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page present
[ 2406.345901] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 2406.345905] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk

[ortermagic]

Thanks for the input Cariboo did the dmesg got a huge output, i cut a snip out that was relevant to the pendrive

1.875774] usb 1-5: New USB device found, idVendor=0951, idProduct=1643
[ 1.875777] usb 1-5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 1.875779] usb 1-5: Product: DataTraveler G3
[ 1.875780] usb 1-5: Manufacturer: Kingston
[ 1.875781] usb 1-5: SerialNumber: 001CC0EC3466AC20D71E4B9C
[ 1.877597] usb-storage 1-5:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[ 1.877763] scsi8 : usb-stor

but it dont mean a thing cos the pendrive is only readable on the 12.04 partition of my hd, I guess that's the problem, somehow there is cross transferance between the partitions I dont know enough about the archetecture to attempt a fix I will try to find out whether the kernels are screwing up.

can anyone tell me how to get the kernel info using the terminal

[Mateusz Stachowski]

If you are on 13.10 I would start with update to the kernel because the one that you have installed is old. Saucy had a couple releases of 3.11 kernels now and the newest is 3.11.0.5.6. I think that you might be dealing with a bug that caused exceedingly long time to mount USB drives.

There was also a thread about it in Ubuntu +1 sub-forum which is marked as SOLVED:

Current Kernel causes blkid USB error

[sudodus]

Sorry to barge in, but should there be a mount point created in /mnt for it, for example:

sudo mkdir /mnt/Pendrive
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/Pendrive

Not sure where this command mounts it to:

sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt

? Or am I missing something? I'm aware you are fairly expert, sudodus, so I probably am missing something.

@ Bucky Ball & cariboo907: For temporary use, I have mounted to /mnt hundreds of times. I think there is something wrong with the USB drivers at least in some kernel versions, that creates problems with some pendrives.There are other threads at the UF about it, for example this one slow-mounting pendrive issue (unison related?) and this one Ubuntu doesn't see usb SanDisk


@ ortermagic: Mounting a drive to /mnt should make it available for reading and writing, at least as root. As a final attempt, I suggest that you try (when when the pendrive is mounted to /mnt)

sudo ls -l /
sudo ls -l /mnt

sudo touch /mnt/empty
sudo ls -l /mnt/empty

sudo echo "hello world" > /mnt/hello.txt
sudo cat /mnt/hello.txt

[sudodus]

If you are on 13.10 I would start with update to the kernel because the one that you have installed is old. Saucy had a couple releases of 3.11 kernels now and the newest is 3.11.0.5.6. I think that you might be dealing with a bug that caused exceedingly long time to mount USB drives.

There was also a thread about it in Ubuntu +1 sub-forum which is marked as SOLVED:

Current Kernel causes blkid USB error

+1

[ortermagic]

That's funny cos I have been doing daily updates for the last two months...are the kernel updates separate, and why would the pendrive read from a different partition?