[SOLVED] Pendrive not detected (TCL 2.11 & alpha 3)

[ophiry]

this is a repost for a bug already mentioned for previous versions
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=4275.0

I appears that TCL doesn't detect some types of pendrives.
fdisk -l returns:

Code: [Select]

in fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sdb: 8086 MB, 8086618112 bytes
249 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15438 * 512 = 7904256 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks  Id System
/dev/sdb1   ?      125407      245362   925929529+ 68 Unknown
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(116, 100, 32) logical=(125406, 168, 29)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(288, 101, 46) logical=(245361, 67, 59)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/sdb2   ?       86163      121076   269488144  79 Unknown
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(357, 32, 43) logical=(86162, 245, 47)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(0, 13, 10) logical=(121075, 74, 42)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/sdb3   ?       34914      125493   699181456  53 Unknown
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(345, 32, 19) logical=(34913, 40, 18)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(324, 77, 19) logical=(125492, 109, 49)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/sdb4   ?       90338       90339       10668+ 49 Unknown
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(87, 1, 0) logical=(90337, 81, 36)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(335, 78, 2) logical=(90338, 176, 44)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary

Partition table entries are not in disk order

The manual solution is to mount /dev/sdb (and not /dev/sdb1) - but I couldn't find a way to detect such pendrives.

Ophir

[curaga]

It was a conscious decision not to support corrupted partition tables, ie Windows-formatted usb sticks.

Create a partition table, Win can still read it.

[ophiry]

I understand.

However, I plan to use TCL for a kiosk station. and people will expect it to read any device that can be read under windows.

I'm not looking for a change in the mainstream TCL - just a pointer that will direct me to a solution

Ophir

[gerald_clark]

I have yet to see a USB thumb drive that was not partitioned from the factory.
I suspect they would be pretty rare.

[curaga]

I've seen a ton of them, almost every stick and mp3 player I've had.

@ophiry: rebuildfstab is the script that handles fstab and the mount points.

[ophiry]

Thanks,

But how do I detect that this is actually a pendrive?
I can try to mount the device and see if I succeed or fail - but I assume there are better ways
(I know that I can get the details with hal, in distributions that use it - so the information is "out there")

Ophir

[Juanito]

But how do I detect that this is actually a pendrive?

Using the usb-utils extension, search the output from "lsusb" maybe?

[ophiry]

I tried lsusb, but found nothing that seemed relevant.

Ophir

[Juanito]

..even in "lsusb -vv"?

[ophiry]

Found a solution:

the command:
blkid <device>

returns some information regarding the file system on the device, or nothing if the device doesn't contain a file system.