Knoppix 3.7 - Kingston 512MB USB works with 2.4 but not 2.6

[Digital Parasite]

I have been seeing that a lot of people are having problems with Knoppix not be able to recognize their USB flash/pen drives at all.

In my case, I have a Kingston 512MB USB flash drive with a FAT32 partition. I have tried booting Knoppix 3.7 on an HP laptop, IBM Thinkpad laptop, and Toshiba laptop using the CD. I have tried both booting with the USB drive already in the machine before powering it on, and also inserting the USB device after Knoppix has finished loading. Doing an lsmod shows that the usb_storage is there.

If I boot from the CD using "knoppix26" to load the 2.6.9 kernel, it never works. No icons ever appear on the desktop and I cannot mount the device manually by using /dev/sd? or /dev/ud? (where ? = a,b,c,d).

If I boot from the CD with the defaul setting that loads the 2.4 kernel, it always works. I always get icons on my desktop and I can always mount/access the the USB drive.

Anyone have any idea how I can get this working with the 2.6 kernel or what is wrong here? I also tried another brand of USB drive and got the same results. If I stick the USB drive into a machine running Fedora Core 3 with th 2.6 kernel, it sees the drive find and I can mount it without any problems.

Thanks in advance.

[yeus]

same problem here but using another USB-stick... I'm not even abl to format or make a new partition table or anything else in Version 2.6. Kernel 2.4 works just fine for just about everything.

[Digital Parasite]

So it seems the way Knoppix is handing USB mass storages devices with their 2.6 kernel build is flaky. Is this a Debian thing or something Knoppix is doing specifically?

Like I said before, with RedHat's Fedora Core 3 and their 2.6 kernel, it works fine mounting the USB mass storage devices. Even taking a stock 2.6.10 kernel from kernel.org works fine, so it doesn't seem to be the kernel itself, unless Knoppix is using strange kernel build options??

[lwatcdr]

When using Unbuntu my PNY drive is found and mounted automatically. Is there a KNOPPIX build that does the same? I am writing an article on how you can use Linux to get data off a computer with a hosed windows install. Unbuntu works but it uses that stupid spacial mode. Kde looks and works more like Windows so it will be easier for them to follow. Not to mention it will be a nice plug for Linux.

[Digital Parasite]

I'm happy to report with the new Knoppix 3.8 CD that was released at CeBit, it now recognizes my Kingston USB drive on boot up. It is showing up as /dev/uba1. YEAH!!!

[UnderScore]

So it seems the way Knoppix is handing USB mass storages devices with their 2.6 kernel build is flaky. Is this a Debian thing or something Knoppix is doing specifically?

I'm happy to report with the new Knoppix 3.8 CD that was released at CeBit, it know recognizes my Kingston USB drive on boot up. It is showing up as /dev/uba1. YEAH!!!

Thanks for letting us know that it is working for you. I think this has to do this the kernel itself and is not distro dependent. The kernel devs have changed how the USB devices are registered. In the past the devices like a USB CDROM or a USB flash drive were detectedas /dev/sda1 or sdb1. According to your evidence it is now being dtected as /dev/uba1. This is good to know so that we can continue to help people.
Thanks,
James

[OErjan]

i think it was som minor flaw in the 3.7 release. some usb sticks simply reported unknown usb device for me.
and my vanilla kernel (unpatched 2.610 and 2.6.11) finds them as sdXY, so this is likely knoppix related (yes, in Debian sarge).

[Digital Parasite]

I'm inclined to agree with OErjan since on my RedHat FC3 box with 2.6.10, it recognized the USB drive without any problems and it comes up as sdXY as well.

Whatever the reason, I'm glad it works now.