Hi Tom, yes, I'm unmounting it (or there probably wouldn't be any data on it either :) and then taking it off the system. There is an entry in /etc/fstab that comes and goes each time its plugged in, but the device still increments for some reason (don't even know where its keeping track of what it was last time if its not in fstab? Ta Peter On Wed, 11 Dec 2002 07:47 pm, Tom Emerson wrote:

On Tuesday 10 December 2002 8:16 pm, Peter Nunn wrote:

...

Hi folks,

I'm just experimenting with a WinFast Disk (USB solid state disk) and it seems to be working OK and being found as a scsi device when I plug it in OK, except that it keeps mounting it as the next device each time its attached (ie /media/sda1, /media/sdb1, /media/sdc1 etc.)

Is there any way of stopping it doing this?

It leaves the /media/sdx1 directory behind each time its unplugged, but doesn't seem to matter if I delete it or not each time, it still uses the next letter.

just a thought, but are you explicitly "umount"ing it before unplugging it? If not, your system might think /dev/sda is still "in use" when you plug it in a second time, hence the allocation of /dev/sdb (then c, d, e...)

On Wednesday 11 December 2002 06:09, Dylan wrote:

Leaving the mountpoint behind should be no problem - my digicam (which works as a USB mass storage device, like your 'disk') leaves the mountpoint behind permanently. In fact, I'd expect it to so that if you try to access it without mounting it you get an empty directory rather than an error.

Good point, but he's talking about the /dev, not the mount point. For example, my CF is always /dev/sda1, no matter how many times I mount/umount it. His keeps incrementing each time it is mounted. *************************************************** Powered by SuSE Linux 8.0 Professional KDE 3.0.0 KMail 1.4 This is a Microsoft-free computer Bryan S. Tyson bryantyson@earthlink.net ***************************************************

On Wednesday 11 December 2002 11:54, Peter Nunn wrote:

Hi Tom,

yes, I'm unmounting it (or there probably wouldn't be any data on it either :) and then taking it off the system.

Use: eject instead of umount. Regards, Cees.

* Bryan Tyson [12-11-02 13:22]:

On Wednesday 11 December 2002 10:01, Cees van de Griend wrote:

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Use: eject instead of umount.

Could you please explain what determines when one should use eject vs. umount?

Eject will umount AND open the tray or eject the disk. Use eject if you intend to remove the cd/dve/ls120-disk/ide-floppy/optical-disk. If you are not going to remove the medium and want the drive un-mounted, use umount . -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://counter.li.org icq#173753138

* Bryan Tyson [12-11-02 18:27]:

On Wednesday 11 December 2002 13:36, SuSEnixER wrote:

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Eject will umount AND open the tray or eject the disk. Use eject if you intend to remove the cd/dve/ls120-disk/ide-floppy/optical-disk. If you are not going to remove the medium and want the drive un-mounted, use umount .

Thank you. How does this help the original problem of the /dev designation incrementing each time he umounts and mounts the USB disk?

The specific question he asked and I answered was:

Could you please explain what determines when one should use eject vs. umount?

Eject will umount AND open the tray or eject the disk. Use eject if you intend to remove the cd/dve/ls120-disk/ide-floppy/optical-disk. If you are not going to remove the medium and want the drive un-mounted, use umount . Thank YOU. -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://counter.li.org icq#173753138

Thanks for bringing this back to the topic Tom. The device doesn't have a specific driver for Linux. Interestingly, on the box, the Linux support has been scrubbed out with a thick black pen, although it still says its supported in the manual (hmm....). Anyway, as I said again earlier, the problem still exists using eject. Peter. On Thu, 12 Dec 2002 09:44 pm, Tom Emerson wrote:

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* Bryan Tyson [12-11-02 18:27]:

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Thank you. How does this help the original problem of the /dev designation incrementing each time he umounts and mounts the USB disk?

to which "SuSEnixER" reiterated:

...

The specific question he asked and I answered was:

...

Could you please explain what determines when one should use eject vs. umount?

I don't mean to unneccessarilly fan the flames here, but the overal subject has to do with "solid state" hard drives [flash ram w/usb interfaces] -- it'd be a neat trick to get the hardware to actually "open the tray" of a USB based flash memory device :)

But, to get everyone on the same page: 1) the original poster (peter) noted a problem where every time he re-mounted a "solid state" hard drive [flash ram], the system would increment the actual "mount point" used -- i.e., from /media/sda1 to /media/sdb1, /media/sdc1, and so on. 2) I asked if he was explicitly "umount"ing the device before removing it -- thinking perhaps if the drive wasn't explicitly unmounted, perhaps the system would consider the device "still in use" when it was plugged in the second time, and thus allocated the next available "sd" mountpoint -- IN REVIEWING the messages, it appears I'm at fault for redirecting the discussion from the "/media/sdxx" to "/dev/sdxx" designations -- trivial though that may be, it appears to actually be a pivotal part of this discussion 3) "Cees Van de Griend" suggested an explicit "eject" versus a simple "umount", with no explanation as to why this might be the better thing to do, which prompted the question "when should one use 'eject' instead of merely 'umount'?" 3a) Cees responded with the fact that "eject" does a little more "deallocation" than a mere "umount" [and SuSEnixER pounted out that in the case where mechanical devices are concerned, this physically causes the media to be "ejected" from the device]

So here we are -- Peter has an odd problem which I'm beginning to suspect is related specifically to the 'winfast usb disk" device and/or driver. Like someone else mentioned, I too have a digital camera that appears to be a usb "flash ram" device [sony handycam w/memory stick] and so far as I can tell, it always re-allocates the same /dev/sd and /media/sd mountpoints. I don't know offhand if the "winfast" device has a specific driver (module) defined for it or if it uses a "generic"USB memory device driver. [I'm guessing here that there is a specific module for it, and I'm willing to bet if you went through the code you'd find it increments the '/media/sdx" device name when it writes the entry to /etc/fstab]

Thanks for this Cees, but no good I'm afraid. It has recycled back to sdb1 and is working its way up to sdc etc.... As an asside, there is no eject option on the icon than lands on the desktop either (not that that's a problem). Doesn't matter if I'm normal user or root either. The other thing of interest, when I use eject, the desktop icon stays put until the device is pulled out. Peter. On Thu, 12 Dec 2002 02:01 am, Cees van de Griend wrote:

On Wednesday 11 December 2002 11:54, Peter Nunn wrote:

...

Hi Tom,

yes, I'm unmounting it (or there probably wouldn't be any data on it either

:) and then taking it off the system.

Use: eject instead of umount.

Regards, Cees.

On Thu, 12 Dec 2002 11:32 pm, Cees van de Griend wrote:

Hello Peter,

On Thursday 12 December 2002 00:30, Peter Nunn wrote:

...

Thanks for this Cees,

but no good I'm afraid. It has recycled back to sdb1 and is working its way up to sdc etc....

BTW: are you useing a recent kernel/SuSE version? I'm using 8.1 with the 2.4.19-4GB kernel.

...

As an asside, there is no eject option on the icon than lands on the desktop either (not that that's a problem).

Doesn't matter if I'm normal user or root either.

The other thing of interest, when I use eject, the desktop icon stays put until the device is pulled out.

Peter.

Well, all I can say is: it works for me, but I don't use the desktop for mounting/ejecting, I always use a terminal (maybe I'm just old fashioned). Is this with a WinFast Disk or another brand (not sure if that should make a difference or not).

Your next logical source for information is the mailing list at: linux-usb-users@lists.sourceforge.net. The author of the USB Storage driver is a member and frequently answers questions. Post your problem there. OK, Ta, I'll try that and report back anything if I get it working.

Regards, Cees. Thanks again.

Peter