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Re: SD card only mounts after fdisk?



On Monday 18 July 2005 04:26, Carl Fink wrote:
 > I have a card reader built into my new PC that detects SD cards as
 > /dev/sda.  Normally my fstab entry lets me mount them as a normal user.
 > That's:
 >
 >
 > /dev/sda1	/media/sd	vfat	rw,user		0	0
 >
 >
 > Sometimes (like just now), though, instead mount reports:
 >
 >
 > mount: special device /dev/sda1 does not exist
 >
 >
 > The interesting thing is, if as root I "fdisk /dev/sda" and the hit "p",
 > and "q", mounting works again.
 >
 > Is this a bug in mount?  In the SCSI subsystem?  I'm ignorant here, it's
 > quite possible it's some subtle mistake I'm making.
 >
 > Any suggestions appreciated.

It sounds more like either a corrupted filesystem on the memory card, or some 
non-conformant FAT-implementation in the mobile device. I have great faith in 
Linux's FAT-implementation.

I would try zeroing the card and remaking the filesystem (check which version 
of FAT, before zeroing: I've seen both FAT16 and FAT32 on such partitions) 
using mkfs.vfat. Then check if the problem persists.
(As a sidenote, this would be exactly what your signature warns about).
It isn't a perfect way of determining a bad implementation, but luck also 
seems to play a role.

Regards, Anders Breindahl.

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