[SOLVED] Want to label flash drives

[JoeS]

Using Debian Lenny

I'm trying to label my usb flash drives.
I checked on the Internet and found a page, but I can't get it to
work: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RenameUSBDrive

I umounted the usb drive. I checked it with
Debian:~# blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="B1CC-3C4F" TYPE="vfat"

but when I try to make a label I get this message:
Debian:~# mlabel -i /dev/sda1 ::VFAT_DOC
Can't open /dev/sda1: No such file or directory
Cannot initialize '::'
mlabel: Cannot initialize drive

If I try mlabel -i /dev/sda1 ::VFAT_DOC when the drive is mounted
I get this output:
Debian:~# mlabel -i /dev/sda1 ::VFAT_DOC
Total number of sectors (7855032) not a multiple of sectors per track (62)!
Add mtools_skip_check=1 to your .mtoolsrc file to skip this test
but no label is attaached to the drive.

I added this to /etc/mtools.conf:
drive p: file=/dev/sdb1
and ran this command:
mlabel p:VFAT_DOC
and still can't get it to work
Can't open /dev/sda1: No such file or directory
Cannot initialize 'P:'
mlabel: Cannot initialize drive

Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?

[JoeS]

I tried this again as a normal user and it worked.
It doesn't work as root.
What would be the reason for this?

When I use blkid to get a prinout:
/dev/sda1: UUID="B1CC-3C4F" TYPE="vfat" LABEL="VFAT-DOC"
/dev/sda: UUID="f6d37e07-f1fd-4971-a6c9-b3f54cd66e1a" TYPE="ext2" LABEL="ext2-doc"

it still shows /dev/sda1 as the vfat flash drive even though it is no longer attached. If I mount another flash drive it will put it under /dev/sda. Has linux reserved this device for this flash drive?


Thanks

[Rubberman]

Accoding to the man page on my system, mlabel should be used like this: mlabel [-vcsn] [-N serial] drive:[new_label] which makes me think you are using the wrong syntax. What happens if you do this as root?

mlabel /dev/sda1:VFAT_DOC

This is assuming /dev/sda is the flash drive. Normally it would be the system boot drive, so make sure you are using the correct device ID.

[JoeS]

I did some more work on this and found the solution.
I need a .mtoolsrc for mlabel to work.That is why it
wasn't working as root.

I don't know what the difference is between safely remove and
umount a flash drive, but when I safely remove I can't access the drive with mlabel, but when I umount I can.
The pop-up when Iinsert the flash drive sometimes gives me one
option and sometimes the other.