USB Flash drive mp3 player won't mount

[lady_chance]

I am at my absolute wit's end- I've been searching for a couple of hours now and can't find a solution. So I'm asking for help.

It's a Samsung YP-U2J USB 2.0 mp3 player. I've used flash drives before, and it worked without any problems what so ever, but I can't, for the life of me, get my computer to recognize it. It doesn't automount, and when I tried what made sense ("mount usb"), I got the following:

mount: can't find usb in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab

But I'm sort of new to this Linux business, so I don't know what to do about it. My operating system is Fedora Core 6, recently updated from FC5.

I figure this is probably insufficient information, but I don't know what else you need. I'll gladly provide what I can on request.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: See post #4 for update on the problem- not just not mounting, but not recognizing its existance at all.

[AlexK]

Ok then, could you do the following please:
1. plug in your mp3 player
2. post back what this command returns:

dmesg | tail

[lady_chance]

dmesg | tail

Returns:

Inbound IN=eth0 OUT= MAC= SRC=76.187.10.226 DST=76.187.15.255 LEN=78 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=64 ID=0 DF PROTO=UDP SPT=32812 DPT=137 LEN=58
Inbound IN=eth0 OUT= MAC= SRC=76.187.10.226 DST=76.187.15.255 LEN=78 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=64 ID=0 DF PROTO=UDP SPT=32812 DPT=137 LEN=58
Inbound IN=eth0 OUT= MAC= SRC=76.187.10.226 DST=76.187.15.255 LEN=78 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=64 ID=0 DF PROTO=UDP SPT=32812 DPT=137 LEN=58
Inbound IN=eth0 OUT= MAC= SRC=76.187.10.226 DST=76.187.15.255 LEN=78 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=64 ID=0 DF PROTO=UDP SPT=32812 DPT=137 LEN=58
Inbound IN=eth0 OUT= MAC= SRC=76.187.10.226 DST=76.187.15.255 LEN=78 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=64 ID=0 DF PROTO=UDP SPT=32812 DPT=137 LEN=58
Inbound IN=eth0 OUT= MAC= SRC=76.187.10.226 DST=76.187.15.255 LEN=78 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=64 ID=0 DF PROTO=UDP SPT=32812 DPT=137 LEN=58
Inbound IN=eth0 OUT= MAC= SRC=76.187.10.226 DST=224.0.0.251 LEN=106 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=255 ID=0 DF PROTO=UDP SPT=5353 DPT=5353 LEN=86
Inbound IN=eth0 OUT= MAC= SRC=76.187.10.226 DST=76.187.15.255 LEN=78 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=64 ID=0 DF PROTO=UDP SPT=32812 DPT=137 LEN=58
Inbound IN=eth0 OUT= MAC= SRC=76.187.10.226 DST=224.0.0.251 LEN=106 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=255 ID=0 DF PROTO=UDP SPT=5353 DPT=5353 LEN=86
Inbound IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=00:16:b5:29:25:bd:00:01:5c:22:80:c2:08:00 SRC=204.16.210.92 DST=76.187.10.226 LEN=774 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x20 TTL=43 ID=0 DF PROTO=UDP SPT=54351 DPT=1026 LEN=754

Which... looks like my modem, if that's what eth0 is? (Trying to learn, so I don't have to waste people's time with my asking.)

[lady_chance]

Upon much more inspection, it appears that my computer isn't seeing the flash drive at all, and not just not mounting it.

]# lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 07b2:5101 Motorola BCS, Inc. 
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

The flash drive IS plugged in, and some part of the computer must see it, because it turns on and says it's charging, but Linux doesn't recognize it. My Windows partition recognizes it... So I tried to use the Knoppix LiveCD to access it, but there's no luck there, either.

I'm thinking about just backing everything up and doing a clean install of FC6, since I had updated from FC5 before. Or even of a different distribution. Might this fix the problem? The mp3 player was an early Christmas gift, so any solution that doesn't involve taking it back and giving up is much preferred.

EDIT: Correction, my Windows partition does NOT recognize it, but it did, at first. I'm thinking I might've broken the drive or something.

[AlexK]

yes, eth0 is just your Ethernet card.

Now the dmesg stuff doesn't give the required info regarding what linux sees the mp3 player as. So try executing this command after you plug the mp3 player in

dmesg | tail -n 20

if you don't see an entry relating to sd** or usb, increase the 20 to 30 or more.

As for windows, perhaps there is a driver required? But most mp3 players are just detected as usb storage in windows and linux.

[lady_chance]

This isn't all of the reply, but this is everything with "usb" in it. It looks promising.

# dmesg | tail -n 20
....
usb 3-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi0 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
usb-storage: device found at 4
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
eth0: no IPv6 routers present
usb 3-1: USB disconnect, address 4
usb-storage: device scan complete
....

Elipses are my own.

[beagle2]

I had the same problem with a generic mp3 player not being seen in linux or xp although it had worked before.
Solution, not very scientific but worked for me and others, was to switch off pc and unplug it from the power source for 5-10 mins.
Sounds unlikely but as I said worked a treat once powered up again.

[AlexK]

looks promising, but the usb disconnect at the end is bit wierd. Another thing to look for is anything to do with SATA or SCSI as linux uses SCSI driver for SATA and usb storage devices. i.e. more lines like the following

scsi0 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices

Also is your hard disk SATA based or the older PATA based one? to check easily look in /etc/fstab and see what the root device is called if /dev/sdaX then you have SATA, if /dev/hdaX then you have PATA.

[lady_chance]

Well, the whole reply can be found right here, if that helps.

And, uh. I don't see anything like that in fstab. This is what I see:

LABEL=/                 /                       ext3    defaults        1 1
devpts                  /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
tmpfs                   /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
proc                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
sysfs                   /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0

[AlexK]

The stupid thing is that the drive disconnects for some reason... Firstly make sure battery is fully charged, then try the following after plugging in the mp3 player.

mkdir /mnt/mp3
su -
mount -o rw /dev/sda1 /mnt/mp3

Seeing that you are using FC, it should automatically handle the mounting of devices for you.