[wplug] Continuing Memory Stick problem on ThinkPad

[Vanco, Don]

>> I did manage to create /mnt/flash, but I cannot mount /dev/sda1
>> because it says that device is not a valid block device.
	Try the raw device - /dev/sda (with both the mount command and
the fdisk command).  If you can't get fdisk to at least look at the
device then you likely have driver-level issues.  Have you mounted other
USB devices without issue?  Can you see relevant drivers via lsmod? In
/etc/modules.conf?  If you open a screen / console and type "tail -f
/var/log/messages" and/or "tail -f /var/log/dmesg" do you see device
activity when plugging in/out?

Don


>-----Original Message-----
>From: wplug-bounces+don.vanco=agilysys.com at wplug.org 
>[mailto:wplug-bounces+don.vanco=agilysys.com at wplug.org] On 
>Behalf Of Jennifer Landefeld
>Sent: Friday, August 13, 2004 9:08 AM
>To: wplug at wplug.org
>Subject: [wplug] Continuing Memory Stick problem on ThinkPad
>
>
>Hello all,
>
>See message below. Any additional advice for us to try to get this 
>stick recognized. It's an X31 ThinkPad running RH9 and a standard USB 
>memory stick. I'm not in the office today so I don't have 
>access to the 
>machine and stick in question. I'm also waiting to hear if this stick 
>has actually functioned on any other computer successfully.
>
>TIA,
>Jenn
>
>>
>>> Re: the memstick issue, here are some suggestions from our Linux 
>>> group:
>>>>
>>>> My drive shows up as /dev/sda1 which I can then mount under
>>>> /mnt/flash. Right after you plug it in, run dmesg or check
>>>> /var/log/messages for a clue on which device name it shows up as.
>>>
>>> ...to add to that, probably something of the
>>> mkdir -p /mnt/flash && mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/flash
>>> should do the trick.
>>>
>>> You can also check if the flash card is readable as a device with
>>> # fdisk -l /dev/sda
>>> That usually exposes the Partition Table From Hell (4 overlapping
>>> partitions, in most USB sticks I've seen), which should be 
>reformatted
>>> with fdisk into something sane.
>>
>> I tried this stuff and, unfortunately, it doesn't work.  Plugging the
>> memstick into the back of the ThinkPad does not produce any result
>> according to dmesg or /var/log/messages.
>>
>> I did manage to create /mnt/flash, but I cannot mount /dev/sda1
>> because it says that device is not a valid block device.
>>
>> I also tried the fdisk -l /dev/sda1 command (had to use /sbin/fdisk
>> since it's not on the search path), but it didn't print anything; I
>> get the same result if I pass fdisk an invalid argument.  It does
>> print useful stuff if I point it at my hard drive instead of the
>> memstick.
>>
>> My guess is that all of this is due to the laptop not 
>recognizing that
>> the memstick is present.  What's the fix?