Using USB pen drive

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Newsgroups:  gmane.linux.debian.user
Date:        Fri, 30 Dec 2005 17:13:29 -0500

Hi,

I need to copy some file from my friend's USB pen drive, but wasn't able to because I don't know how to properly mount it.

The disk partition looks like this:

$ fdisk -l /dev/sdb
Disk /dev/sdb: 521 MB, 521928704 bytes 17 heads, 59 sectors/track, 1016
cylinders Units = cylinders of 1003 * 512 = 513536 bytes

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

What should I do to copy files from my friend's USB Drive? (I don't know how he created it, but it can be accessed ok in WinXP).

Using USB pen drive

> I tried to mount /dev/sdb1 with type auto and vfat, but failed. Then I
> tried with usbfs. It mounted ok, but I wasn't able to find any
> meaningful files from the mount:

usbfs is a virtual filesystem, like proc. It gives you information about connected USB devices by presenting it as part of the filesystem.

Try mounting /dev/sdb. I've seen Windows format the raw device without setting up a partition table — this is how floppies work usually, so Windows probably carried the concept over to other removable media.

Chris Howie

Using USB pen drive

> merely mount /dev/sdb will definately won't work, since there
> are apparently partitions in it...

Those "partitions" are the misinterpretation of the filesystem data as a partition table. There is a very good chance that /dev/sdb contains a file system. Try it before saying it won't work.

Chris Howie

Using USB pen drive

> I need to copy some file from my friend's USB pen drive, but wasn't able
> to because I don't know how to properly mount it.

The answer depends on which kernel version you are running, because there has been a switch from something older to something newer in the way usb pluggable devices are handled. The something newer is called 'udev'. There is some controversy about what to call the older, obsolete stuff. I am somewhat ahead of you in learning about this, but don't yet know the answer to your question. Just be sure to suspect any answer by someone who doesn't ask what kernel version you have before giving advice.

Paul E Condon