2

Ubuntu newbie here.

I just bought a 3G USB key, and I need to install the software, which is found in the USB key itself. The problem is that Ubuntu cannot "see" it.

I found a couple of commands that I used such as sudo fdisk -l or cat proc/partitions – but no success. I unplug the drive, use the command, plug it in, use the command, same result ...

Help! Also note: I'm using Ubuntu 12.whatever

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  • If fdisk -l does not show the drive, then it's almost certainly a hardware problem, and there's little to nothing that you can do via software.
    – ignis
    Jun 16, 2013 at 11:59
  • @ignsi: That highly depends. @ Zied: if still a problem, do not be afraid to update question with relevant information.
    – Runium
    Jun 20, 2013 at 10:48

3 Answers 3

7

USB keys should automagically be mounted and added to "Places", /media/ or /media/username and the like.

A nice tool to use when handling USB devices is lsusb. It shows you all your hubs (USB ports) and connected devices. Use:

lsusb -v

for a very verbose output etc. As always man <command>, <command> --help.


In your case however, it seems like there are some trouble. Try:

tail -f /var/log/{kernel,dmesg,syslog}

(Ctrl+C when done)

Then unplug and insert the USB device. You should see some messages, and as it is not mounted, probably some notes about why. Update question with output if you are unsure.


To output it to file, so that you do not have to copy it from terminal, you could use tee:

tail -f /var/log/{kernel,dmesg,syslog} | tee some_file_to_print_to.txt

Then update question with output:

  • Open file in e.g. gedit, gvim etc.
  • Click edit below your question.
  • Paste in the contents of the file.
  • Mark the text and press "Code sample" (<$>) from the menu line.

If it is very long paste it to paste.ubuntu.com and update question with the resulting URL (or URL's if you paste more then one).


Another nifty tool is:

udevadm monitor

Same procedure (if the output seems to be relevant).


If mounted you should also, beside fdisk and the less user-friendly /proc/partitions by:

ls -la /dev/disk/by-id

lsblk is another way to list disks in a nice way.

6
  • Th output is too long.. I'm really confused
    – Zied
    Jun 15, 2013 at 14:55
  • @Zied: What output?
    – Runium
    Jun 15, 2013 at 15:05
  • Wait, by output, what do you mean?
    – Zied
    Jun 15, 2013 at 15:12
  • @Zied: You said it: "Th output is too long.. I'm really confused"
    – Runium
    Jun 15, 2013 at 17:19
  • Yeah I know. But I referred to what the console gave me (the result). I got confused and thought you were referring to something else. Anyways Its impossible to copy it all here (restricted amount of characters)
    – Zied
    Jun 15, 2013 at 18:32
0

I had the same problem, the device listed on lsblk but not in sudo fdisk -l

A restart of the OS fixed it for me though.

0

If the drive works correctly, the drive should always automagically appear as a block device named /dev/sdX with usual setups. Lines similar to the following would also appear when you run journalctl -k or sudo dmesg, and you can see all sorts of useful information of it between new USB device and Attached SCSI disk:

[78614.567571] usb 2-1: new SuperSpeed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd
[78614.588268] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=46f4, idProduct=0001,
bcdDevice= 0.00
[78614.588278] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[78614.588281] usb 2-1: Product: QEMU USB HARDDRIVE
[78614.588283] usb 2-1: Manufacturer: QEMU
[78614.588285] usb 2-1: SerialNumber: 1-0000:00:02.1:00.0-1
[78614.602766] usb-storage 2-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[78614.604700] scsi host7: usb-storage 2-1:1.0
[78615.627980] scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access     QEMU     QEMU HARDDISK    2.5+
PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[78615.628783] sd 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[78615.629306] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] 41943040 512-byte logical blocks: =
(21.5 GB/20.0 GiB)
[78615.629539] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[78615.629543] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 63 00 00 08
[78615.629830] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled,
doesn't support DPO or FUA
[78615.631568]  sdb: sdb1
[78615.631731] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk

Immediately before Attached SCSI disk is a list of partitions, in the form of filenames as it appears in /dev. Other information here further identifies the USB drive.

Once the USB device's node name is determined, it can be manually mounted from the command line:

$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media

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