now nothing mounts

**kendew** · 01-30-2008

Posted this at suseforums All Of A Sudden, No Flash - SUSE Forums
but I guess everyone was stumped there, so I'm trying this more general linux forum.
The problem is suddenly no USB or firewire drives are mounting, no flash card, no iPod, etc., after mounting perfectly and automatically for a long time. I don't know why they stopped mounting suddenly. Perhaps one of the mandatory updates did it. But, for whatever reason, suse's usability has diminished. I need to get these devices mounting automatically in a plug-and-play fashion again, as they were before.
All the devices are clearly recognized in Yast Expert Partitioner, but not accessible.
Any help here is much appreciated.

**Jonathan183** · 02-01-2008

fstab entries look OK in your original post, I have similar entries. Have you checked in Yast -> system -> system services (runlevels) that dbus and haldeamon are running?

**kendew** · 02-02-2008

Thank you for taking the time. Yes, dbus and haldaemon are indeed running, according to System Services.

**Jonathan183** · 02-02-2008

When you put a pen drive in the USB port, what is shown in partitioner ? does partitioner show a mount point for the device. Does mtab entry change ... on my system mtab additional entry is ...

Code:

/dev/sdb1 /media/disk vfat rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,flush,uid=1000,utf8,shortname=lower 0 0

do you get anything similar?

**kendew** · 02-02-2008

No. The device is recognized in Partitioner as
/dev/sba SanDisk-U3 Cruzer Micro
/dev/sba1 FAT16

However, there is no change in mtab

**Jonathan183** · 02-02-2008

Originally Posted by kendew

No. The device is recognized in Partitioner as
/dev/sba SanDisk-U3 Cruzer Micro
/dev/sba1 FAT16

However, there is no change in mtab

Is the reference sda?

Looks like a few are having this type of problem Usb Devices Not Detected When Plugged In - SuSE Linux Forums

Your post on that forum has a few more answers but does not seem to have solutions yet.
Does

Code:

fdisk -l

list the usb device?
Can you mount the device manually as root user?

**kendew** · 02-03-2008

At the moment, the only USB device I have with me to test is my camera, and fdisk -l seems to detect it as /dev/sdb:

Code:

# fdisk -l

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1          26      204819+  ee  EFI GPT
/dev/sda2              26        5884    47054848   af  Unknown
/dev/sda3   *        5884       14240    67115100   83  Linux
/dev/sda4           14240       14594     2846039+   b  W95 FAT32

Disk /dev/sdb: 495 MB, 495452160 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 960 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1         960      483719+   6  FAT16

I am curious about the line:

Code:

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.

As fdisk doesn't recognize format of /dev/sda2, which is jhfs+ for my Mac OS partition.

Mount doesn't work:

Code:

# mount -t FAT16 /dev/sdb Desktop
mount: unknown filesystem type 'FAT16'

If I try without specifying filesystem:

Code:

 # mount /dev/sdb
mount: can't find /dev/sdb in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab

Not sure why FAT16 would be unknown filesystem, but maybe this is a key to my problem.
Thanks for the link. That case is a little different than mine as farcus reports that fdisk -l detects nothing, whereas in my case device is detected. What farcus attempted in reformatting and reinstalling 10.3 is not an option for me. I have done it enough times, and don't have the time for reinstalling everything. Also, even if it cures the symptoms, the problem may return. I feel a robust OS would have another solution. Maybe farcus is on the right track about one of the updates breaking the system, but when I can't use camera, external HD, flash drive, etc., it seriously limits what I can do.
Any ideas appreciated.

**Jonathan183** · 02-03-2008

You could try this as root ...

Code:

mkdir /manmount
mount /dev/sdb1 /manmount

This should give you acces to the device contents which should be available in /manmount folder ...
It may be useful to examine mtab at this point ...

Once you have finished with the drive you should

Code:

cd /
umount /dev/sdb1

**kendew** · 02-05-2008

Yes, this works, and, though the core problem remains, it's a big, big step in the right direction, as, at least, I can now access data through USB devices. Also mtab shows:
/dev/sdb1 /manmount vfat rw 0 0
Now I wonder how I can edit ftab or whatever so these devices will mount, preferably on the desktop where they can be accessed without root privileges as before. Of course, eventually I hope to get them mounting as they were originally.
Thanks for the idea.

**Jonathan183** · 02-08-2008

As I said in my second post the fstab entry looks OK ... its the same as mine ...try this as su

Code:

gpasswd -a <user> plugdev

with your login name replacing the <user> bit

This should add you to the plugdev group ... I think that should fix it.

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