USB Issues: Exit code 21 kills mounts - how do you diskcheck flash?

[jimwg]

Greetings!

I am a tech-newbie with two problems ongoing with my Mint 9 USB install on a 8gig flash drive. I’ve successfully installed it and used it twice on two machines, however after five or six times, two things have happened: One machine no longer sees it on its boot list at all no manner how many time I reboot it, and with the other the flash drive now only signals:

Unable to mount 60 GB Filesystem
Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 21: mount: according to mtab, /dev/sda1 is already mounted on /media/E8701CFA701CD0E4

I have scoured Google for remedies with exit code 21 and how it supposedly means the HD has pre-mounted somehow and such, and everyone has ultra-techie explanations that go over this newbie’s head. I don’t expect to get a spot on solution, but just a general way to go would be really helpful!

Also, I’d like to learn to perform a FSCK and CHECKDISK on my flash drive, but Google entries say never do this without unmounting the drive first -- but don’t explain how!

Any hints or recommendations would be most appreciated!

Thanks!

Jim in NYC

[Rubberman]

It seems you are trying to manually mount the device when the automounter has already mounted it for you in /media. Look in /media and see if there is a directory there. Next, if there is, see what device it is associated with with "df /media/dirname". Finally, you can "umount /media/dirname", and at that point you can run fsck on it. Example, if it is associated with /dev/sdb1, you can run "fsck -f /dev/sdb1". I assume that this is a FAT file system?