External USB drive unable to mount

English Hardware
1

I am trying to get a new external USB drive working on a system. The drive works under windows, and other drives work on this linux box, so I suspect there may be a compatibility issue with that particular drive.

The problem existed under 11.1, I just did a fresh install of 11.2 but get the same issue.

Dec  4 11:30:29 redundant kernel:  6149.650308] usb 1-4.3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 15
Dec  4 11:30:39 redundant kernel:  6159.820317] usb 1-4.3: device descriptor read/64, error -71
Dec  4 11:30:39 redundant kernel:  6159.984285] usb 1-4.3: device descriptor read/64, error -32
Dec  4 11:30:39 redundant kernel:  6160.147296] usb 1-4.3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 16
Dec  4 11:30:39 redundant kernel:  6160.210296] usb 1-4.3: device descriptor read/64, error -32
Dec  4 11:30:39 redundant kernel:  6160.374287] usb 1-4.3: device descriptor read/64, error -32
Dec  4 11:30:40 redundant kernel:  6160.537279] usb 1-4.3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 17
Dec  4 11:30:50 redundant kernel:  6170.939028] usb 1-4.3: device not accepting address 17, error -110
Dec  4 11:30:50 redundant kernel:  6171.012270] usb 1-4.3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 18
Dec  4 11:31:00 redundant kernel:  6181.414028] usb 1-4.3: device not accepting address 18, error -110
Dec  4 11:31:00 redundant kernel:  6181.414400] hub 1-4:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 3

Any ideas?

2

Is this a standard usb2 connection
What is the device more specifically
Have you tried other usb2 ports

Tell you what, as a temp fix lets try this from a su terminal:

rmmod ehci_hcd

Now re-connect your usb device, does it work?

3

It is a Western Digital 1.0TB (WD10EADS) drive in an external case. The case is not a brand name one, it has a Omnitech UTS8000 controller.

redundant:/var/log # rmmod ehci_hcd
ERROR: Module ehci_hcd does not exist in /proc/modules
4

I have tried the different USB ports, and had the same problem with a different motherboard that was in this system.

As part of upgrading to 11.2 I installed a different motherboard because the old one kept locking up.

So I suspect this has a cheap Chinese controller that linux does not support.

5

Please try this. Shutdown. Remove all usb devices you can, eg: Printer, other external HD’s, whatever
Obviously you need your keyboard if that’s usb and mouse

Now try it

6

I;ve a similar problem getting one or more external drives that are connected by USB to mount under OpenSUSE 11.2. I haven’t fully resolved the problem yet, mostly because I really don’t know what I am doing, but I am pretty close.

First, you might want to consider the information provided by these two links I found:

Mounting USB Partition in openSUSE Linux | OpenSUSE Linux Rants

SuSE alert SUSE-SA:2007:029 (kernel) [LWN.net]

The second link tells you certain things that ought to be done, but heck, I’m not sure exactly how. If someone can lay out some clear and precise instructions, it could help people like me.

Anyway, by messing around with /etc/fstab, these two entries ha ve solved a part of the problem:

/sys/bus/usb/drivers /proc/bus/usb usbfs defaults,rw,auto,user 0 0
none /media usbfs defaults,rw,auto,user 0 0

I think it is the second line that is doing the heavy lifting.
But the trouble is, even though I try to make sure that it gets mounted automatically on bootup, it doesn’t, and if I disconnect the drive and plug it back end, then it shows up, only the user still cannot write to it. That was suppose to be resolved by the rw,auto, and user. No help though.

Root can write to the external drive, but to work in that mode, you have to get to the command line (terminal mode) and first log in as sudo -s, then give your password. Works. but not real helpful if you don’t know your way around the file structure under Linux or lack any real knowledge of BASH commands.

There needs to be a better way, and maybe there is, but I just haven’t come on it yet.

Oh yes, since no specific mount point is given with the second statement above, the mount point for the USB attached drive will be set up like this: /media/[volume label]. This means it might be good to make sure that the external drive gets a label, or distinct labels for each formatted partition on it.