Hi Nik
I was able to get successfully get my SD card to mount as /home on my 4G EeePC.
Here's what I did.
I started with your steps.
fdisk /dev/sdb1
mkfs.ext2 /dev/sdb1
mount /dev/sdb1 /tmp/newhome
cp -a /home/* /tmp/newhome
umount /dev/sdb1
Next I went to the eeeuser.com wiki
Auto-Mount USB Storage Devices [EeeUser Eee PC Wiki]
I followed most of the steps there.
Find out the serial number of your device
1. Insert your SD card or USB thumb drive
2. Open the terminal (Ctrl-Alt-T in Easy mode, run konsole in Advanced). All actions below are performed in a terminal window. You may note some commands end with an ”&”. This makes them run in background, so that if you say run a GUI editor like KWrite, you can get your terminal prompt back for further commands, even with KWrite still running.
3. Save the contents of a virtual file /proc/bus/usb/devices into a real file in your home directory
cat /proc/bus/usb/devices > /home/user/usb_devices.txt
4. Open /home/user/usb_devices.txt in an editor
kwrite /home/user/usb_devices.txt &
5. Find your device and serial number. Look for sections where the I: line ends with Driver=usb-storage, a few lines above you will find the serial number of the card reader. Some devices will also have a product name you might recognise. It is this name that prevents some of them mount properly, preventing you to access them. Look for a line with Product=USB DISK 2.0 (note this is just an example, and your name may be different or not there at all).
T: Bus=05 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=04 Cnt=02 Dev#= 2 Spd=480 MxCh= 0
D: Ver= 2.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs= 1
P: Vendor=0cf2 ProdID=6225 Rev= 1.00
S: Manufacturer=ENE
S: Product=UB6225
S: SerialNumber=146030377350
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=80 MxPwr=498mA
I:* If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=08(stor.) Sub=06 Prot=50 Driver=usb-storage
E: Ad=01(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
E: Ad=82(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
Configure device detection
1.
Make note of the serial number, or just keep the file open for cut and paste.
2.
Edit /etc/udev/rules.d/50-xandros-udev.rules. You need to be root to do it:
sudo kwrite /etc/udev/rules.d/50-xandros-udev.rules &
3.
Find the comment
# usb, removable storage
4.
Immediately after this comment, so that it will replace the Asus dialog, add the following line, changing the serial number to match your device and optionally changing the name sdcard1 (in both places)
BUS=="usb", KERNEL=="sd*", SYSFS{serial}=="146030377350", NAME="sdcard1", OPTIONS+="last_rule", RUN+="/bin/mount /dev/sdcard1"
5.
Make sure the above line is correct, especially taking care the number and placement of ”=” signs is matching. Probably the best thing to do is to copy and paste the line above, then change sdcard1 if required.
Here's where I deviate...
I edited my fstab and added the following line.
/dev/sdcard1 /home ext2 rw 0 0
I saved the file and rebooted..
It worked like a charm.
Good Luck
Dean