cannot access USB drives

English Hardware
#1

Hello

I am unable to access USB drives. Please suggest.

Thank you.

#2

Give more information.

Can you see them in /media?

If you are using KDE4 have you clicked on the computer icon which lists what is plugged in?

#3

Further along the lines of what john_hudson suggested, please plug in your USB drives, and then with them plugged in, copy and paste the following one line at a time to a gnome-terminal or kde-konsole and post here the output:cat /etc/fstab
df -Th
su -c 'fdisk -l’and type root password when prompted for a password.

#4

Here is my hal.conf in case it helps:

<!DOCTYPE busconfig PUBLIC
“-//freedesktop//DTD D-BUS Bus Configuration 1.0//EN”
“http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/dbus/1.0/busconfig.dtd”>
<busconfig>

<!-- This configuration file specifies the required security policies
for the HAL to work. →

<!-- Only root or user haldaemon can own the HAL service →
<policy user=“haldaemon”>
<allow own=“org.freedesktop.Hal”/>
</policy>
<policy user=“root”>
<allow own=“org.freedesktop.Hal”/>
</policy>

<!-- Allow anyone to invoke methods on the Manager and Device interfaces →
<policy context=“default”>
<allow send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Manager”/>
<allow send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device”/>
<allow receive_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Manager”
receive_sender=“org.freedesktop.Hal”/>
<allow receive_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device”
receive_sender=“org.freedesktop.Hal”/>

<allow send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.SystemPowerManagement”/>
<allow send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.LaptopPanel”/>
<allow send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume”/>
<allow send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.Crypto”/>
<allow receive_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.SystemPowerManagement”
receive_sender=“org.freedesktop.Hal”/>
<allow receive_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.LaptopPanel”
receive_sender=“org.freedesktop.Hal”/>
<allow receive_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume”
receive_sender=“org.freedesktop.Hal”/>
<allow receive_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.Crypto”
receive_sender=“org.freedesktop.Hal”/>
</policy>

<!-- Default policy for the exported interfaces →
<policy context=“default”>
<deny send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.SystemPowerManagement”/>
<deny send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.VideoAdapterPM”/>
<deny send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.LaptopPanel”/>
<deny send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume”/>
<deny send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.Crypto”/>
</policy>

<!-- This will not work if pam_console support is not enabled →
<policy at_console=“true”>
<allow send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.SystemPowerManagement”/>
<allow send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.LaptopPanel”/>
<allow send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume”/>
<allow send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.Crypto”/>
</policy>

<!-- You can change this to a more suitable user, or make per-group →
<policy user=“0”>
<allow send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.SystemPowerManagement”/>
<allow send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.VideoAdapterPM”/>
<allow send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.LaptopPanel”/>
<allow send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume”/>
<allow send_interface=“org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.Crypto”/>
</policy>

</busconfig>

#5

oldcpu wrote:
> Cross_AM;1898445 Wrote:
>> I am unable to access USB drives. Please suggest.
> Further along the lines of what john_hudson suggested, please plug in
> your USB drives, and then with them plugged in, copy and paste the
> following one line at a time to a gnome-terminal or kde-konsole and post
> here the output:::cat /etc/fstab
> df -Th
> su -c ‘fdisk -l’::and type root password when prompted for a
> password.
>
>
Here is my /etc/fstab

/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST9120821AS_5PL4ZYQ9-part8 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST9120821AS_5PL4ZYQ9-part9 /home ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST9120821AS_5PL4ZYQ9-part1 /windows/C ntfs-3g users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST9120821AS_5PL4ZYQ9-part5 /windows/D vfat users,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST9120821AS_5PL4ZYQ9-part6 /windows/E ntfs-3g users,gid=users,umask=0002,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST9120821AS_5PL4ZYQ9-part7 swap swap defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs noauto 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0

Here is the output of df -Th
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda8 ext3 11G 5.5G 4.7G 54% /
udev tmpfs 498M 96K 498M 1% /dev
/dev/sda9 ext3 16G 1.5G 14G 10% /home
/dev/sda1 fuseblk 28G 8.4G 20G 30% /windows/C
/dev/sda5 vfat 28G 18G 11G 63% /windows/D
/dev/sda6 fuseblk 28G 14G 15G 49% /windows/E

Here is the output of fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x85ab85ab

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 3648 29302528+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 3649 14592 87907680 f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sda5 3649 7296 29302528+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda6 7297 10944 29302528+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda7 10945 11135 1534176 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8 11136 12541 11293663+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 12542 14592 16474626 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 1025 MB, 1025507328 bytes
17 heads, 48 sectors/track, 2454 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 816 * 512 = 417792 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 11 2455 997376 b W95 FAT32

Thank you oldcpu and john_hudson for replying.

#6

In /media there is a file named log which says “You will not be able to write the partition table.”

#7

Ok, that is your external USB hard drive. It is recognized as /dev/sdb1. But it is not auto mounted. If it was, it would have shown up on the “df -Th” command.

Its possible the “hal” printout provides something of use, but that sort of information is beyond my knowledge. I prefer not to speculate.

You could manually mount it. With root permissions, create a directory called /windows/X. Change the ownership on that to your regular user being the owner, and change the group to “users”. Change the permissions to “owner can view and modify” and “group can view and modify” and leave others to “view”.

Once that is done, plug in your USB device, and run the “fdisk -l” to confirm it is still sdb1. Then open a gnome-terminal or a konsole and with root permissions manually mount it with:
mount -t vfat -o rw,users,uid=your-user-name /dev/sdb1 /windows/X
and substitute “your-user-name” with your user name.

You should then have read-write on directory /windows/X

#8

Cross_AM, is this “automounting” issue with KDE4 only? If so, similar discussion here and here.

#9

deano ferrari wrote:
> Cross_AM, is this “automounting” issue with KDE4 only? If so, similar
> discussion ‘here’
> (http://forums.opensuse.org/hardware/394952-automounting-11-kde4.html)
> and ‘here.’ (http://tinyurl.com/65xdx3)
>
>
No I am using KDE3 actually.

#10

Something to check:

Control Centre > KDE Components > Service Manager

Make sure that the KDED Media Manager is enabled.

#11

deano ferrari wrote:
> Something to check:
>
> Control Centre > KDE Components > Service Manager
>
> Make sure that the KDED Media Manager is enabled.
>
>
Yes it is enabled as a startup service.

#12

It is strange that I can access my digital camera directly but not my pen drive.

#13

Did the manual mounting work?

#14

Yes it did but I have to mount it each time. I apologise for forgetting to update the thread.

#15

If the mount point never changes, you could create a desktop icon that you click on.

What I typically do is (after plugging in a drive where the hot plug mount did not occur) is open a kde konsole, and type:history | grep mountand then I copy and paste the mount command. My memory is horrible (in terms of remembering the syntax) and I’m too lazy to look the command up in my notes.

#16

oldcpu wrote:
> If the mount point never changes, you could create a desktop icon that
> you click on.
>
> What I typically do is (after plugging in a drive where the hot plug
> mount did not occur) is open a kde konsole, and type:history |
> grep mountand then I copy and paste the mount command. My
> memory is horrible (in terms of remembering the syntax) and I’m too lazy
> to look the command up in my notes.
>
>

Thank you.