Arch Linux

mDuo13

Member

Registered: 2010-04-25

Posts: 93

[Solved] Mounting USB storage devices

I've been having a lot of trouble getting a normal read-write mount of a standard USB device lately (it used to work a while back). I've followed the wiki page to no avail.

First off, I'm using openbox with no complete DE, so I don't get this for free from gnome or anything. I can have Thunar mount volumes automatically, but it only seems to mount them read-only. And yes, my user in the storage group.
Earlier, I had a udev rule from the wiki for mounting USB sticks, but it tended to crash Thunar when I clicked the volume in Thunar's sidebar.

When I try to mount my USB device manually as described in the Arch wiki page, I get a few different problems. Mounting by volume label fails:

sudo mount -o rw,noauto,async,user,umask=1000 /dev/disk/by-label/CENTON\x20USB /media/usb
mount: special device /dev/disk/by-label/CENTONx20USB does not exist

(the path /dev/disk/by-label/CENTON\x20USB definitely exists... varying the backslashes had no effect.)

I was able to mount the disk manually with /dev/sdd1:

sudo mount -o rw,noauto,async,user,umask=1000 /dev/sdd1 /media/usb

But the filesystem still ends up mounted read-only.

The filesystem type on the disk is vfat, as reported by df -T. Although, this has been happening with other USB sticks as well.

Any idea how I could mount the disk read-write? I don't particularly care about the files on it, so I'm willing to format if necessary.

Last edited by mDuo13 (2011-06-27 20:59:37)

Inxsible

Forum Fellow

From: Chicago

Registered: 2008-06-09

Posts: 9,183

Re: [Solved] Mounting USB storage devices

Have you tried devmon or udiskie or udisksvm?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ud … .26_Tricks

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mDuo13

Member

Registered: 2010-04-25

Posts: 93

Re: [Solved] Mounting USB storage devices

Have you tried devmon or udiskie or udisksvm?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ud … .26_Tricks

Not yet. Udiskie looks pretty handy, so I might check it out. But before I go there, I think I just found something that brings me closer to the root of this problem:

Off a fresh reboot, I can mount the filesystem fine manually and touch and remove files. The moment I navigate to the mounted folder in Thunar, it becomes read-only. Closing Thunar, unmounting, and mounting again gets me a rw-able file system again. But there are a few certain files that, if I try to do anything with them... the filesystem becomes read-only again. dmesg shows some errors:

FAT: Filesystem error (dev sdd1)
    fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 489265)
FAT: Filesystem error (dev sdd1)
    fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 489265)
FAT: Filesystem error (dev sdd1)
    fat_free_clusters: deleting FAT entry beyond EOF
FAT: Filesystem has been set read-only

I'm going to try formatting this USB stick and see what happens. I wonder why I've been having problems with other USB sticks as well, though. I wish I had some others on hand to see if this happens with them too.

fatjoe

Member

Registered: 2011-04-14

Posts: 2

Re: [Solved] Mounting USB storage devices

Have you tried installing gvfs and gvfs-afc and then rebooting? Those packages fixed my mounting problems..

whompus

Member

From: Durham. UK

Registered: 2005-08-09

Posts: 256

Re: [Solved] Mounting USB storage devices

I use obdevicemenu works great

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=114702

student975

Member

From: Russian Federation

Registered: 2011-03-05

Posts: 613

Re: [Solved] Mounting USB storage devices

I use obdevicemenu works great

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=114702

Thanks for the ref! - I'm next happy obdevicemenu user.

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jlindgren

Member

Registered: 2011-02-27

Posts: 260

Re: [Solved] Mounting USB storage devices

When I try to mount my USB device manually as described in the Arch wiki page, I get a few different problems. Mounting by volume label fails:

sudo mount -o rw,noauto,async,user,umask=1000 /dev/disk/by-label/CENTON\x20USB /media/usb
mount: special device /dev/disk/by-label/CENTONx20USB does not exist

(the path /dev/disk/by-label/CENTON\x20USB definitely exists... varying the backslashes had no effect.)

Try "\ " (backslash space) instead of "\x20".

I was able to mount the disk manually with /dev/sdd1:

sudo mount -o rw,noauto,async,user,umask=1000 /dev/sdd1 /media/usb

But the filesystem still ends up mounted read-only.

The filesystem type on the disk is vfat, as reported by df -T. Although, this has been happening with other USB sticks as well.

Any idea how I could mount the disk read-write? I don't particularly care about the files on it, so I'm willing to format if necessary.

Might be a dumb question, but are you sure the stick isn't physically write-protected?  Some have a little toggle switch.

mDuo13

Member

Registered: 2010-04-25

Posts: 93

Re: [Solved] Mounting USB storage devices

A bit belated, but it turns out that some of the files on the USB stick I was testing were corrupted, and the moment any program read anything about those files, it flipped the filesystem into read-only.

I formatted the disk entirely and it works fine now.