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catnap

Member

Registered: 2016-10-03

Posts: 131

A USB flash drive fails to mount

I attempted to start using my old Kingston USB flash drive which had long remained unused in my drawer. I used the standard command line tool to locate my old USB drive

lsusb -v

but the command does not list my device. Neither is the device listed by

dmesg

Is there a way to recover data from an USB stick in a situation like this or help the system to recognize the device by giving more options manually? In general, how does one recover information from a problematic USB drive?

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 50,983

Re: A USB flash drive fails to mount

Is there an LED on the key? Does is light up?
Check the contacts. If it's not hardened dust, you can temporarily "repair" them with graphite (a weak pencil. stay inside the lane, do NOT cross them)

In general, one can disassemble a USB key and combine the working parts with equal working parts from another device.
That's however not trivial, best done by professionals and, depending on what effort is required, not exactly cheap.

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catnap

Member

Registered: 2016-10-03

Posts: 131

Re: A USB flash drive fails to mount

Is there an LED on the key? Does is light up?

There is a LED. When I connect the USB stick
to the computer, the LED blinks once and then
goes blank.

I will attemp the trick with the pencil.

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 29,522

Website

Re: A USB flash drive fails to mount

First, rule out the simplest things: do other flash drives work?  If not, or if you don't have any to test with, does your running kernel match the installed kernel? (does `pacman -Q linux` match the `uname -a` version?).

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catnap

Member

Registered: 2016-10-03

Posts: 131

Re: A USB flash drive fails to mount

First, rule out the simplest things: do other flash drives work?

Yes, the other flash drives work.

does `pacman -Q linux` match the `uname -a` version?

These match. They give the following outputs.

linux 4.11.3-1

Linux kepler 4.11.3-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun May 28 10:40:17 CEST 2017 x86_64 GNU/Linux

whatshisname

Member

Registered: 2010-04-24

Posts: 163

Re: A USB flash drive fails to mount

I sometimes have problems mounting USB drives if I don't reboot after a kernel update.

Consequently, rebooting after kernel updates is part of my routine.

jasonwryan

Anarchist

From: .nz

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 30,424

Website

Re: A USB flash drive fails to mount

whatshisname: the output OP posted above established that was not the issue.

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ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 19,772

Re: A USB flash drive fails to mount

You had stated that dmesg does not show the device.  Does it (or the journal) record any kind of USB enumeration activity when the device is connected?

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