quirky usb/external hard drive connection

[alphaace]

Hi,

When I connect a usb drive and transfer the files, the transfer rate is highly variable. It ranges from 6MB/s to 500 kb/s. I can understand if this was an internet download by why the variability from my hard drive to a usb drive? Then, when it finishes copying, no matter what I do to unmount, it tells me its busy. There is NOTHING being copied and still it can't unmount. The only way to do it is, log out, log back in and then it unmounts.

Also, when I connect my blackberry bold, it initially finds the file structure. Then when I try copying a movie to the appropriate location it slows down and freezes dolphin. The only thing I can do is to totally unplug it. Also, the blackberry keeps asking me for my mass storage password. I enter it every time and it seems to never register. In os x, same password gets asked once and it accepts it so I know its not a password issue...

I know it's not much to go on but just a thought...

[wedgetail]

Hey this is not OS X forum, or did you forget to tell us something    A bit hard with no system information,  destop etc

[alphaace]

Hey,

My laptop is OS x, and I gotta hand it to the mac people, albeit they are more expensive their stuff does just work all the time. However, I don't think the markup is worth it for a desktop where you can swap parts out.

My setings are PCLinuxos 2010, my kernel is 2.6.32.12-pclos1.bfs, I am using KDE 4 and my X version is 1.6.5. My computer is custom built so I'm not sure what you mean by "desktop". Lastly, I have a 2.4 Ghz processor, single core, 512 MB of ram.

I tried connecting the usb and blackberry directly to the machine and through a usb hub as well. Both presented problems. Other usb devices (mice, tablets, etc...) seem to work appropriately. Please let me know if I need to provide anything else (and if you can provide the command to get that information  it would be great!)

[Was_Just19]

Two things come to mind initially .....

it is not possible to unmount a partition if the system thinks it is in use ......  that use could be something as simple as having Dolphin displaying its contents.

This still catches me   

With 512MB RAM you are on the limit for reasonable KDE performance ......  when a large file is being copied it will get cached and the transfer continues after the original has finished copying, but maybe well before the write to the new location is complete. That of course depends on hardware etc.

Have you done an MD5sum check on the copied files and the source files to compare them, to see if they were copied correctly?
Something MIGHT have been lost if you had to reboot and the copying was not finalised.

[alphaace]

Hey,

I tried closing dolphin and then issuing the umount command through the prompt but still no luck. Further, when I log back in then I can unmount it through dolpin so I don't think dolphin displaying it's contents is the cause.

I see what you are saying about the copying but why should that freeze dolphin? I would think a file manager should be able to account for that correctly. Thanks though!

[Was_Just19]

Hey,

I tried closing dolphin and then issuing the umount command through the prompt but still no luck. Further, when I log back in then I can unmount it through dolpin so I don't think dolphin displaying it's contents is the cause.

I see what you are saying about the copying but why should that freeze dolphin? I would think a file manager should be able to account for that correctly. Thanks though!

How are you mounting the partitions?
Selecting the partition in Dolphin to display the contents which automatically mounts the partition?

What is the mount point (typical) of the partition/s?

[wedgetail]

alphaace
Something curious here, but I can confirm one similar experience which I wrote off to having installed a distro with my USB drive connected and I did not mean to have it included, I could not figure a way to dismount gracefully, I hit the reset button.

Let us pull out the heavy artillery, could save quite few questions. Go to Synaptic find hardinfo this is a very small program that I am familiar with and it has the ability to generate reports in stages. Run a report with the lot, it will allow you to save the report in html format so it is easy read in a web browser. Please do attach the report to your post.

Or if hardinfo is a bit on the difficult side, can you get us the results of following two commands, from konsole, but if you understand content of hardinfo you will see all the extra info we would be getting:

Code: [Select]

[gert@localhost ~]$ df

[gert@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost gert]# fdisk -l

[root@localhost gert]#


[alphaace]

Hey,

Let me try the console commands. If you still need more I'll try to learn hardinfo as at first glance it seems complex.

Here are the results directly from the console (the USB drive is labeled ACTUARY):

[greg@Aphrodite ~]$ df
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1              71G  4.7G   63G   7% /
/dev/sdb1             147G   50G   97G  34% /home
tmpfs                 251M     0  251M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sdc              966M  714M  253M  74% /media/ACTUARY
[greg@Aphrodite ~]$ su
Password:
[root@Aphrodite greg]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00405aac

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        9397    75481371   83  Linux
/dev/sda2            9398        9729     2666790    5  Extended
/dev/sda5            9398        9729     2666758+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0166e3c4

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1       19457   156288321   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 1012 MB, 1012924416 bytes
32 heads, 61 sectors/track, 1013 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1952 * 512 = 999424 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x73696420

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

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   ?      983582     1262494   272218546+  20  Unknown
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(356, 97, 46) logical=(983581, 13, 54)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:                                                               
     phys=(357, 116, 40) logical=(1262493, 28, 7)                                                                 
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdc2   ?      681447      957562   269488144   6b  Unknown
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(288, 110, 57) logical=(681446, 26, 25)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(269, 101, 57) logical=(957561, 23, 15)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdc3   ?      276122      992497   699181456   53  OnTrack DM6 Aux3
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(345, 32, 19) logical=(276121, 19, 41)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(324, 77, 19) logical=(992496, 1, 50)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdc4   *      714461      714472       10668+  49  Unknown
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(87, 1, 0) logical=(714460, 28, 36)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(335, 78, 2) logical=(714471, 26, 22)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order

[wedgetail]

alphaace
Thanks,  , looks fine at a glance. No clues I can see (your USB stick is a bit funny in fdisk but I think it is sometimes normal).

You had better get the hardinfo, all you need is start (you  can start from konsole if you like) > Generate >Generate in second window > Save at a location of your choice then attach to post, it should be an html file which is an acceptable format.

Because it is a full report will take a few minutes depending on what you have running.

[Was_Just19]

I had USB sticks with somewhat similar partitioning report from fdisk. Very weird stuff!
I thought at the time it was to facilitate use in an Apple OS, but not having such an OS I did not know.

To use the sticks in PCLOS I changed the partition table using fdisk ('o' option) and have been using those devices without issue since.

I have no idea what Apple OS makes of DOS partition tables -- although I expect it reads and writes to them OK -- so cannot really advise about changing it.

[alphaace]

Hi,

I've attached the hardinfo information with my full first and last name removed.

JohnBoy: If I use fdisk to change the partition table will it erase everything on the stick? Will it make it unreadable in OS X or windows? If not, what's the actual command I need to use? Never used fdisk before...

Thanks again everyone for your help!

Edit: It wouldn't let me attach html so I made it pdf. I've removed my name and the networking section that has some ip stuff. If anything else on here is "sensitive" let me know and I'll cut some more html!

[wedgetail]

alphaace
Don't see the paperclip at the bottom of your post   

[alphaace]

fixed!

[wedgetail]

I agree  had to go away for 1 hour will look

[Was_Just19]

JohnBoy: If I use fdisk to change the partition table will it erase everything on the stick? Will it make it unreadable in OS X or windows? If not, what's the actual command I need to use? Never used fdisk before...

Yes it erases everything presently on the stick.

Yes Windows will be able to use the stick, as it puts a DOS partition table on it.
Win will no doubt require a partition format it recognises .....  not a Linux filesystem.

As I said above, I have never used OS X so I have no idea, but expect it should be able to use it as it has been the default partition table for many years.
I would expect also that you would have some tools in OS X which could do the job also .....  but again I do not know, never having used the OS.

Maybe someone with a MAC would care to comment?