USB drive doesn't mount

[jokkl]

Hi,

so I tried to mount an USB drive, but when I plug it in nothing happens. This happens only on Linux, if i boot my windows partition everything's fine.
Also, when I unplug the USB drive, then plug it in again, lsusb doesn't work anymore and if I unplug it again, the computer freezes.

This is the (possibly) relevant output of dmesg:

Code: Select all

[   18.458655] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 6 using xhci_hcd
[   18.654933] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=058f, idProduct=6387
[   18.654940] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[   18.654945] usb 1-1: Product: Mass Storage Device
[   18.654949] usb 1-1: Manufacturer: JetFlash
[   18.654952] usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 7295ZN5X
[   18.655676] usb-storage 1-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[   18.655989] usb-storage 1-1:1.0: Quirks match for vid 058f pid 6387: 400
[   18.656124] scsi7 : usb-storage 1-1:1.0
[   19.653612] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: ERROR Unknown event condition, HC probably busted
[   40.854987] usb 1-1: reset high-speed USB device number 6 using xhci_hcd
[   41.049817] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: xHCI xhci_drop_endpoint called with disabled ep ffff88042a1cb208
[  129.148728] SGI XFS with ACLs, security attributes, realtime, large block/inode numbers, no debug enabled
[  129.151019] JFS: nTxBlock = 8192, nTxLock = 65536
[  129.157238] ntfs: driver 2.1.30 [Flags: R/W MODULE].
[  129.162019] QNX4 filesystem 0.2.3 registered.
[  129.232384] raid6: sse2x1    9413 MB/s
[  129.300314] raid6: sse2x2   10954 MB/s
[  129.368237] raid6: sse2x4   11538 MB/s
[  129.436166] raid6: avx2x1   17696 MB/s
[  129.504092] raid6: avx2x2   26377 MB/s
[  129.572019] raid6: avx2x4   32818 MB/s
[  129.572020] raid6: using algorithm avx2x4 (32818 MB/s)
[  129.572021] raid6: using avx2x2 recovery algorithm
[  129.574526] xor: automatically using best checksumming function:
[  129.611976]    avx       : 34369.000 MB/sec
[  129.617361] Btrfs loaded

Here's lsusb:

Code: Select all

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 046d:c52e Logitech, Inc. 
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 05e3:070e Genesys Logic, Inc. USB 2.0 Card Reader
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 05e3:0608 Genesys Logic, Inc. USB-2.0 4-Port HUB
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 1395:0025 Sennheiser Communications 
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 058f:6387 Alcor Micro Corp. Flash Drive
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

The USB drive I want to mount is the Alcor Micro Corp. Flash Drive.

And here's fdisk -l:

Code: Select all

Disk /dev/sda: 931,5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00021e85

Device     Boot      Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *          2048    1026047    1024000   500M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2          1026048  929521663  928495616 442,8G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3        929521664 1953523711 1024002048 488,3G  5 Extended
/dev/sda5        929523712 1056499711  126976000  60,6G 83 Linux
/dev/sda6       1920755712 1953523711   32768000  15,6G 83 Linux
/dev/sda7       1056501760 1920753663  864251904 412,1G 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order.
Disk /dev/sdb: 1,8 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: B17B6CBE-29CD-4C42-892A-EA0E6A69719A

Device        Start        End    Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sdb1        64       8191       8128    4M EFI System
/dev/sdb2      8224     520191     511968  250M Microsoft basic data
/dev/sdb3    520224    1032191     511968  250M Microsoft basic data
/dev/sdb4   1032224    1257471     225248  110M unknown
/dev/sdb5   1257504    1843199     585696  286M Microsoft basic data
/dev/sdb6   1843200    7086079    5242880  2,5G unknown
/dev/sdb7   7086080   15472639    8386560    4G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sdb8  15472640 3907026943 3891554304  1,8T Microsoft basic data

sda is the SSD I boot from, sdb is an additional HDD, the USB drive is not listed.

Any ideas how to fix that?
Thanks.

[aslicedbanjo]

I don't have any answers, but I'm seeing something similar with a USB hard drive, and two USB pen drives. I get a dialog box entitled "Unable to mount USB_DISK" with the text "Not authorized to perform operation".

All of them work with my Debian laptop. Additionally, my Android phone *can* be mounted and files can be copied to and from it.

There are some other things I've noticed that *might* be related:

• I can't launch Synaptic, at least not via the menu shortcut.
  I can't use the Mint Update manager to install updates.
  I can't change the date and time - the "Unlock button" in the Date and Time settings is greyed out.

I've looked a little into the Synaptic issue and it seems to be a pkexec problem - it's like it can no longer open the password dialog box. When I run Synaptic "manually" (i.e. run the contents of the shell script in a terminal), I am prompted for a password:

Code: Select all

$ pkexec "/usr/sbin/synaptic"
==== AUTHENTICATING FOR com.ubuntu.pkexec.synaptic ===
Authentication is required to run the Synaptic Package Manager
Authenticating as: <MY_USER>,,, (<MY_USER>)
Password: 
==== AUTHENTICATION COMPLETE ===

(I replaced my real user name with <MY_USER>)

I first noticed it about six weeks ago (mid to end of May 2016).

I can create the separate forum posting if the pkexec is not related to the USB disk issue.

[kevinthefixer]

What filesystem type is the thumbdrive in question? If you have gparted installed, can it see it and identify it? It may be a matter of installing the fstools for that type. Or formatting the flash drive to something more common like FAT32 or EXT4 (although Windows cannot "see" EXT4).

[aslicedbanjo]

What filesystem type is the thumbdrive in question? If you have gparted installed, can it see it and identify it? It may be a matter of installing the fstools for that type. Or formatting the flash drive to something more common like FAT32 or EXT4 (although Windows cannot "see" EXT4).

In my case the thumb drive is indeed formatted as FAT32.

One difference I noticed on my Debian system, is this line:

Code: Select all

Jul 11 20:01:27 eeepc kernel: [  567.620161] FAT-fs (sdd1): utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!

in the syslog output. My LMDE machine doesn't have this line. Is that a clue?

I have the dosfstools installed. Are there any others I should check?

[jokkl]

What filesystem type is the thumbdrive in question? If you have gparted installed, can it see it and identify it? It may be a matter of installing the fstools for that type. Or formatting the flash drive to something more common like FAT32 or EXT4 (although Windows cannot "see" EXT4).

It's FAT32 and gparted can't see it.

[jokkl]

I've figured out so far that it's not a problem with the USB-drive, but with the USB-ports. I have 6 USB-ports of which I can use 4 without problems, unless I use a USB-HUB, then none of them works.

[kevinthefixer]

I've figured out so far that it's not a problem with the USB-drive, but with the USB-ports. I have 6 USB-ports of which I can use 4 without problems, unless I use a USB-HUB, then none of them works.

Almost sounds like a hardware problem. Are you sure you have sufficient power? USB ports (at least USB2 ports) aren't that power-hungry but you certainly have an oddball problem. I suggest you try booting to another distro's live-CD and see if the problem persists. If it does turn out to be LMDE-related it's going to take more know-how but what I gots to fix it.