Return of the Phantom USB Device...

[Peter King]

Our Story So Far: The Samsung Yepp 55V, a multifunction gizmo that
should act as a USB mass-storage device, gives the following odd problem
under Linux (*not* Mac OS X 10.2): after loading the usb-ohci and the
usb-storage modules via modprobe, which also loads usbcore, I can mount
the device [via mount -t msdos /dev/sda1 /mnt] and copy files from it
and delete files on it. What I *cannot* do is write to it. I don't know
why.

As you can see from the following log report, write-protect is off:

kernel: hub.c: 2 ports detected
kernel: hub.c: USB new device connect on bus2/2, assigned device number 2
kernel: scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
kernel:   Vendor: Samsung   Model: YP-55             Rev: 0001
kernel:   Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
kernel: Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
kernel: SCSI device sda: 506880 512-byte hdwr sectors (260 MB)
kernel: sda: Write Protect is off
kernel:  /dev/scsi/host1/bus0/target0/lun0: p1

No amount of rebooting or rmmod the usb-storage module seems to affect
the situation. There is one anomaly, though; if I run fdisk on the
device before mounting, I get reports that the boundaries aren't where
they ought to be.

So here's the question: 

Should I try to reformat the device (on the off-chance its partition
boundaries are messing things up) with a new FAT16 filesystem from
fdisk?

I'm worried that if I do so it'll never work again. Especially since it
works without a hitch under OS X. I'm inclined to let sleeping dogs lie.
But my Inner Geek really *wants* to make this thing work under Linux --
in part because I've had far too many uphill struggles to get things
working under Linux that should Just Work (but don't).

-- 
Peter King			        peter.king-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org
Philosophy Department
University of Toronto			    (416)-978-3788 ofc
Toronto, ON   M5S 1A1			    (416)-978-8703 fax
    CANADA

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