Return of the Phantom USB Device...

[Tim Writer]

Peter King <peter.king-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org> writes:

> 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.

Where was it partitioned and formatted?  If the answer is OS X, you may need
to have support for BSD partitions compiled into your kernel.  If it came
with a Windows formatting utility, it won't probably won't hurt to reformat.

HTH,

-- 
tim writer <tim-s/rLXaiAEBtBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org>                                  starnix inc.
905.771.0017 ext. 225                           thornhill, ontario, canada
http://www.starnix.com              professional linux services & products
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