usb flash plug-in

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: usb flash plug-in
started by: dtf

Posted by dtf on Dec. 19 2005,16:58

I hope this one doesn't make me look too much like an idiot.

Here is the problem.

Scenerio 1) I plug the usb flash memory in my laptop usb port and boot my system. The system comes up and I mount /mnt/sda1 and everything is fine. I can see files move them around etc.

Scenerio 2) I boot my system with the usb flash drive not plugged into the usb port. System comes up and runs fine. I then plug the flash memory into the usb port and the flash blinks and the LED goes on. However, I can't find a mount point. There is no /mnt/sda1 or no /mnt/auto/sda1 for me to mount.

Is there a way I can mount the flash memory without rebooting?

Thanks.

Posted by roberts on Dec. 19 2005,17:14

You didn't state which version of DSL you are running.
USB hot plug was enabled in v2.0. It is working fine for me.
Boot DSL, with no pendrive.
Then plug in pendrive, wait a few seconds and then mount it.

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 19 2005,17:40

Usually, if you wait 10-20 seconds the drive will be detected and assigned a mount point.

The mount.app in the lower right corner will probably not see this new mountpoint, but in emelfm you should be able to naviate to

/mnt

and then Right-Click on sda1 and choose "Mount"

Or to do it manually inside a terminal window, try:

mount /mnt/sda1

or 100% manully by typing:

sudo su
mkdir /mnt/sda1
mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1

and then you can access it with Emelfm as Super User

Posted by roberts on Dec. 19 2005,22:11

Actually you don't need to be user root to do anything with a removable pendrive.

Once plugged in and you see the light flashes on the pendrive,
then as normal user dsl

$mount /mnt/sda1

And as normal user you can access, read or write files on the pendrive.

The hotplug creates the mount point and entry in /etc/fstab and allows normal user to mount it. The pendrive, because it is a removable device is set to owner dsl and group staff.

Fixed drives, (hard disks), are normally not set to user dsl group staff only because DSL is primarliy a liveCD or nomadic OS. In which case root is required to try to minimize any accidental access to the hosts drives.

Posted by mikshaw on Dec. 19 2005,23:51

Quote (roberts @ Dec. 19 2005,17:11)

Fixed drives, (hard disks), are normally not set to user dsl group staff only because DSL is primarliy a liveCD or nomadic OS. In which case root is required to try to minimize any accidental access to the hosts drives.

I assume this is specific to fat partitions? I frequently mount my reiserfs partitions as user dsl with the command "mount /dev/hdaX", and have read-write permission...provided the files in question are already owned by 1001.

Posted by dtf on Dec. 20 2005,15:24

I did try to mount the device manually but got an error, something like "bad block device". I did not check the fs type and can try that but the "bad block device" error does not leave me optimistic with that solution.

A check of the DSL version is always a good idea. I was running on 1.5 and when I loaded in 2.0 it works as designed. When I plugged in the memory stick the /mnt/sda1 pops up in the emelfm window and I can mount it.

However, here is the rub.

When I go to DSL 2.0 I lose my wireless capability. I notice that during the boot sequence the D-LINK wireless card is no looker assigned to port eth0 but is now assigned wlan0. That seems reasonable and I can even see that the card and model are recognized. However, I am not able to configure to the card. With DSL 1.5 I used Wlanconfig to configure the card to eth0 but that does not work for DSL 2.0. I was making some progress with using Prism2. In fact, ifconfig shows me the wlan0 interface with what I am assuming is a valid MAC but my attempts to get network connections fail. I have tried both DHCP and assigning a static IP. This is all done using the DSLpanel tool.

This laptop is a christmas gift for my high school son. It would be great if I could get either DSL 1.5 working with the hotplug flash or DSL 2.0 configured with wireless capability. Hopefully he can see there is more to computers than Counter Strike and UT.

Thanks.

Posted by roberts on Dec. 20 2005,19:27

If you wish to presue this, please start a new topic under networking, Also provide more details about your netcard.
Lets not switch topics mid thread here.