[clug] A "mount" defeat - was Re: Persuading Debian to talk to an Android tablet via USB?

[Hal Ashburner]

  On 21/Oct/10 7:31 PM, Felix Karpfen wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Oct 2010 18:08:02 +1100, Brett Worth wrote:
>
>>> [felixk@ ~]$ mount /mnt/memstick/
>>> mount: I could not determine the filesystem type, and none was
>>> specified.
>>>
>>> The relevant entry in /etc/fstab currently reads:
>>>
>>> "/dev/sda1       /mnt/memstick   auto    rw,user,noauto  0       0"
>> Maybe there's no partition table in which case this should read sda not
>> sda1.  Also it's a bit weird that it's an sda device unless...  no its
>> just weird.
> The "/etc/fstab entry" was set up to read the content of USB memory-
> sticks - which it does very well.   The setting may be totally
> inappropriate for reading<SD-Cards|Android tablets>.
>
>> You could try plugging it in then doing an dmesg to see if there's
>> device names being reported.
> I tried all the suggestions; and scored either a "failure to open" (with
> the fdisk command) or lots of output (with dmesg) that is well beyond my
> understanding. A fraction of the latter output is attached:
>
> [777752.188018] usb 1-3: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and
> address 11
> [777757.368018] usb 1-3: device descriptor read/64, error -62
> [777762.652023] usb 1-3: device descriptor read/64, error -62
> [777762.932030] usb 1-3: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and
> address 12
> [777768.112022] usb 1-3: device descriptor read/64, error -62
> [777773.396038] usb 1-3: device descriptor read/64, error -62
> [777773.676037] usb 1-3: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and
> address 13
> [777779.084018] usb 1-3: device not accepting address 13, error -62
> [777779.260018] usb 1-3: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and
> address 14
> [777784.668016] usb 1-3: device not accepting address 14, error -62
> [777784.668042] hub 1-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port
> 3
>
> My thanks to all for giving such speedy attention to my problem.
>
There's your problem, the USB card reader isn't working. Either dud 
hardware or just not working with linux. The latter would seem fairly 
unlikely to me, but difficult to say for sure. If it is the hardware you 
might have done yourself out of $3 including postage, scandalous! I say sue.

I think no fstab entry and automount is good for usb storage myself. 
It's what I use on my Debian Lenny box here. I'm sure you know what 
you're doing and why you're doing it.

Things to try might be alternative usb ports on the box. Plugging and un 
plugging a few times until it works, rebooting the box with the SD 
reader plugged in, a quick throw of the bones and some rhythmic chanting 
could also be optimal... Or try a different SD reader? Someone might 
have better suggestions than these, let's hope so. My best guess failing 
SD reader hardware fault would be your usb port is old and built 
according to the USB spec so is not delivering enough power (newer usb 
ports deliver more power than the spec requires to power external hard 
drives and modems and so on). If you have a cable lying about that 
enables you to plug it into two usb ports simultaneously that could 
work, but I doubt you do, I don't and I've got cables coming out the wazoo.