FAT filesystem support

[SwampDonkey]

I'm trying to get a CF card reader working under Linux (I've been following the instructions at http://vic.dyndns.org/linux-UsbMassStorage/ ).

Things haven't been going too badly, I can see the reader is recognised by Linux but I'm having problems mounting. I know the filesystem on the card is FAT (not VFAT). When I try to mount I get told that the FAT filesystem isn't supported by my system. The module is there, and I don't see any errors when I run 'modprobe fat' so I'm kinda running out of ideas.

Any suggestions?

Pete

[friskydrifter]

Try VFAT ?

[trommaster]

vfat is used from win95 up, so chances are it is vfat

[SwampDonkey]

I get errors when I try to use VFAT. Something about not being able to see a specific sector. I'm at work at the moment so I can't get the full message but will post later.

The card is formatted FAT rather than FAT32. This is why I thought I would try the fat filesystem driver instead of vfat.

Pete

[trommaster]

so what exactly are you running to do it?
mount /dev/sda /mnt/flash (or whatever) should work fine. it works for my memory key. try booing into windows and see what filesystem type it is under the drive properties

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah, I've got a memory key too which works OK, but that is formatted FAT32. I checked the CF card under Win2k Disk Management and that's how I know its FAT and not FAT32.

Using sg_scan -i I can see the device and using sg_map I can see that it maps to sda (from memory). I've added an fstab entry along the lines of;

/dev/sda1 /mnt/flash fat noauto, etc etc etc

This is basically identical to the entry for the memory key since they both get plugged in to the same USB port. Just the filesystem is different.

Should I be using /dev/sda instead of /dev/sda1??? I should bring the laptop to work with me and try it here I guess. This'll teach me to be a few timezones out!!

Pete

[trommaster]

sda is the drive, sda1 is the partition.
what happens if you just try it from the command line with no filesystem tags, and see if mount can autodetect it

[SwampDonkey]

OK, I'm still not sure if I should be mounting the disk (/dev/sda) or the partition (/dev/sda1) so I tried both. The mount command fell over with a "mount: you must specify the filesystem type" error if I didn't supply a -t option.

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/flash -t vfat gave the error;
"mount: /dev/sda1 is not a valid block device"

mount /dev/sda /mnt/flash -t vfat gave the error;
"mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda, ot too many mounted filesystems"

Hope this helps.

Pete

[trommaster]

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/flash -t vfat gave the error;
"mount: /dev/sda1 is not a valid block device"

ok, this is the one you want
try sda2->x untill one of them works :P

[SwampDonkey]

I went through from sda1 to sda10 and all I got was more of the "not a valid block device" errors.

Any other suggestions?

Pete