[Odyssey]

Linux Newbie here, so your patience appreciated. Have installed Ubuntu on one of our office computers with intent to do so on all of them and become a refugee from Windoze.

It found the CD Drive OK and was able to install a USB printer OK, but I put a Kingston USB memory device into the USB port and nothing came up on the desktop. My computer doesn't show it, but I can see it in Device Manager.

What do I need to do to be able to access it please? TIA

[utanja]

Originally Posted by Odyssey

Linux Newbie here, so your patience appreciated. Have installed Ubuntu on one of our office computers with intent to do so on all of them and become a refugee from Windoze.

It found the CD Drive OK and was able to install a USB printer OK, but I put a Kingston USB memory device into the USB port and nothing came up on the desktop. My computer doesn't show it, but I can see it in Device Manager.

What do I need to do to be able to access it please? TIA

have you installed udev and hal as well as gnome-volume-manager?

[Odyssey]

Utanja, Thank you, but I don't know what any of that means. Consequently, it probably means that I have not. How do I go about it?

[linuxphile]

Generally Ubuntu installs the required services to recognize the USB devices such as memory sticks. In fact, an out of the box install of Ubuntu 6.04 recently was able to recognize a USB drive. Do you see a directory in /media that might be your USB drive? Have you tried booting the computer with the device plugged in? Would you paste the contents of your /etc/fstab here for our perusal?

[Odyssey]

linuxphile, Thanks for the information. I will be at the office again tomorrow and will try the reboot and to get the "contents of your /etc/fstab" to post.

Errrr.... How do I get that?

Also, I think my version of Ubuntu is 5. something which I intend to try to update tomorrow using Synaptic as well. (Any cautions/guidance on this?)

[linuxphile]

You can get the contents of your /etc/fstab by opening a terminal window and issuing the following command:
'sudo cat /etc/fstab'
You can then select the information printed to your screen and copy and paste here.

I'm a big fan of complete reinstalls. I've never gone through an Ubuntu upgrade honestly. I have used apt/yum to upgrade Fedora installations and they haven't always gone so well so I tend to backup any data/config files I need and then do a complete install from scratch.

Let us know how your's goes.

Cheers!

[Odyssey]

Here 'tis:

Before plugging in USB device (Kingston 512MB memory drive)
Password:
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda6 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0
odyssey@ubuntu:~$ sudo cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#

After plugging in USB device:

# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda6 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0
odyssey@ubuntu:~$

Hopefully, this will tell you something

Also gave command "lsusb" and got the following:

Bus 003 Device 009: ID 0930:6533 Toshiba Corp.
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 04a7:022c Visioneer
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 03f0:6204 Hewlett-Packard DeskJet 5150c
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000


FYI, "My Computer" shows a floppy1 which my computer does not have, but does not show the USB drive.

Starting the update now.

thanks.

[Odyssey]

Not having much luck trying to update my Ubuntu 5.04. Can anyone point me to a tutorial? thanks.

[linuxphile]

The Ubuntu documentation has some good info on upgrading: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DapperUpgrades and there is also http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-...to-dapper.html

[Odyssey]

Linuxphile, thanks for the lead.

What could you tell from the fstab dump?

[Odyssey]

Linuxphile,

Also, when you say you do a complete reinstall, do you remove the older version first and if so, how, and if not, do you just install over the older one?

[linuxphile]

It is not necessary to remove the old installation if you plan on reformatting the hard drive, which can be done within the installer. Usually I create a separate partition for my /home directory and leave it intact when I reinstall/upgrade.

Cheers!

[Odyssey]

LP, thanks for the response regarding reinstalls.

I am very hopeful to get my Kingston USB memory device to work. I surmise that the fstab dump results did not tell you anything. Is there anything else I might interrogate to find the problem/solution?

[linuxphile]

Try using dmesg to determine the location of the device within the filesystem using:
sudo dmesg | grep SCSI

Example result from system
[17308985.960000] SCSI device sda: 1000944 512-byte hdwr sectors (512 MB)

Then determine if fdisk can see the drive using:
sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb (NOTE: replace /dev/sdb with the actual device location as determined by the dmesg command)

If fdisk is able to identify the device create a directory somewhere to mount the device. For example create a usbdrive folder in your home directory.

Now, from a terminal window again try:
sudo mount /dev/sdb /home/user/usbdrive (NOTE: replace /dev/sdb with the device as determined by the dmesg command, and replace /home/user/usbdrive with the full path to the folder you created in the previous step.)

HTH

[Odyssey]

LP, thanks very much.

the results of the dmesg:

scsi9 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 00
SCSI device sda: 2033377 512-byte hdwr sectors (1041 MB)
SCSI device sda: 2033377 512-byte hdwr sectors (1041 MB)

Am a bit unsure about "replace /dev/sdb with the actual device location as determined by the dmesg command)". Should I be replacing "/dev/sdb" with "/dev/sda"?

Have done this and the results are:

odyssey@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 1041 MB, 1041089024 bytes
33 heads, 61 sectors/track, 1010 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2013 * 512 = 1030656 bytes

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 ? 386556 953625 570754815+ 72 Unknown
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(357, 116, 40) logical=(386555, 11, 23)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(357, 32, 45) logical=(953624, 6, 61)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 ? 83801 1045563 968014120 65 Novell Netware 386
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(288, 115, 43) logical=(83800, 2, 1)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(367, 114, 50) logical=(1045562, 23, 53)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3 ? 928903 1890666 968014096 79 Unknown
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(366, 32, 33) logical=(928902, 28, 32)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(357, 32, 43) logical=(1890665, 16, 36)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda4 ? 1 1806869 1818613248 d Unknown
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(372, 97, 50) logical=(0, 0, 1)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(0, 10, 0) logical=(1806868, 19, 53)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order

While I am trying to figure out how to make a new folder, I thought I would go ahead and post this to see if I am on the right track. Apologies for the low level of understanding here, but I am an absolute beginner to Linux & Ubuntu.