USB Sticks don't mount

After having returned from a two week vacation my 2 USB-Sticks (SanDisk 1 G and Yakumo 512 MB) suddenly don't mount anymore. If I start DiskUtility it keeps spinning and spinning, if I pull the Stick out DiskUtility stops spinning and shows the stick (which isn't there anymore). This happens on all three OS-X systems I have! I cannot even reformat the sticks. I have all the latest updates installed.
Frans

I hope you didn't have valuable data on your USB sticks.
If you can't get them recognized and formated by Disk Utility on 3 different computers, I'd try to return them to the store.
There's no perfect solution for file storage. (Flash based) USB sticks, harddrives, DVDs can fail without warning you, so you should always keep backups available. Read http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/backuprecovery.html and search this forum. There are other utilities like Carbon Copy Cloner (free) and Superduper. You don't have to use Retrospect.

Similar Messages

USB stick slow to mount

Ever since kernel 2.6.6 (currently using 2.6.9) I have been having some slow mount times (takes about 20 seconds to mount my USB stick). I have tried both devfs and udev but both yield the same results. Currently I am using udev (hence the /dev/stick).
USB media support is compiled into the kernel, as well as all necessary USB bus support (V1's - V2).
My fstab entry:
/dev/stick /mnt/usbstick vfat rw,users,noauto,noexec 0 0
demesg output:
[root@intel2500 jjohnson]# dmesg
>usb-storage: usb_stor_bulk_transfer_buf: xfer 13 bytes
usb-storage: Status code 0; transferred 13/13
usb-storage: -- transfer complete
usb-storage: Bulk status result = 0
usb-storage: Bulk Status S 0x53425355 T 0x35 R 0 Stat 0x0
usb-storage: scsi cmd done, result=0x0
usb-storage: *** thread sleeping.
usb-storage: queuecommand called
usb-storage: *** thread awakened.
usb-storage: Command READ_10 (10 bytes)
usb-storage: 28 00 00 00 02 9d 00 00 01 00
usb-storage: Bulk Command S 0x43425355 T 0x36 L 512 F 128 Trg 0 LUN 0 CL 10
usb-storage: usb_stor_bulk_transfer_buf: xfer 31 bytes
usb-storage: Status code 0; transferred 31/31
usb-storage: -- transfer complete
Strangely, the last eight lines 'loop' or repeat themselves over and over (too long to post obviously). I think this might have something to do with the slowness however I have no idea what it means. Once it is mounted, the device operates at speeds comparable to Windoze.
Thanks for any help.
JSkier

Have you tried plugging in the devices one at a time to see if the problem is with just one of them?
If so, you may need to contact the manufacturer & see if they say it is compatible with 10.4.6 as is, or may need a firmware update, which hopefully they can provide.
Note: when I Googled "Dazzle compact flash reader OS X" I got several hits suggesting at least one model with this description isn't very compatible with OS X, like this one.

Usb stick doesn't mount on Mac, but does on Win

Hello all,
I've been looking for a solution for my issue allover, but it seems to be persistently difficult to find.
I got an unbranded 4gb pen drive formated as FAT32. The device works perfectly on Windows, but my Mac OS 10.8.4 doesn't recognize it.
I've tried to:
a) Look at the "Utilities Disk" and "Finder". Doesn't show up.
b) Format at any possible format with Windows (FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, even HFS+ using a software).
c) Use another usb stick in the same port. It works with any other pen drive.
d) Use the usb stick in another computer. Still, work only on Windows, not on Mac.
e) Use it with Windows. Works.
P.S.: I'm attaching a image of the mounted items. The two HFS are partitions of my external hard drive (disk1s2 and disk1s3) and the other is the Bootcamp partition (disk0s4).
Does anyone know what I could do to make the usb stick work on my Mac?
I'd appreciate any help on this matter.
Cheers!

OK, a SD/compact memory card type of thing used with cameras. The same solution/diagnosis still applies. Failing mounting the memory card directly in the MacBook, you could do it indirectly, via a cable that connects the camera or whatever it is used with, with the card in it, and the cable connected to your MacBook's USB port. It's a bit of a pain, but it's usually possible to do it that way.

USB stick won't mount on mac mini, it works perfectly on my macbook

Both of them are osx lion.
On the mini the led of the 256Mb USB stick (and still plenty of space!) gives short flashes every second, and won't mount on my desktop, in finder. It doesn't show up in disk utility.
The mac mini is the most recent server model. I tried USB ports on the back of the mac mini, and also on the connected thunderbolt display. Other memorysticks work well. Only this particular one doesn't work on the mini.
The memorystick works perfectly in my 2008 macbook pro. Plug it in, it mounts as it should do.
What can i do?

In Disk Utility, once you highlight a Drive or Partition, you'll see Verify Disk, (blue arrow), & if a drive you're not booted from then Repair Drive, (red arrow), will be an option also...
I'm thinking you may have to copy everything off it & see if you can Format it FAT32.

Satellite C660 - USB sticks are not mounted

I have a *Satellite C660 with Windows 7 64 bit*. When I conect a USB stick (2GB LG or another), Windows mount the USB new drive, but after some seconds, the USB stick is unmount and mount and unmount indefinitely.
With my old *Toshiba Sattelite M50, Windows XP* both sticks work fine.

Hi mkobets,
Probably something is wrong with USB ports or chipset driver if the USB sticks work with your old Toshiba notebook
Easiest way would be updating the chipset driver in my opinion that you can download here:
http://eu.computers.toshiba-europe.com/innovation/download_drivers_bios.jsp

USB drives don't mount

I have a problem with my brand new macbook. When connecting usb thumb drive or external usb hard drive to the computer nothing happens. There isn't disk image on the desktop or in the finder sidebar. The drive doesn't show on disk utility.
With thumb drive there isn't any system messages at /var/log/system.log or any events with dmesg.
With the external usb drive there is following message at /var/log/system.log
USBF: 29698.842 AppleUSBEHCI[0x557e800]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 253, timing out!
How ever, if I connect usb universal card reader to my macbook and insert memory card from my digital camera is is recognised. So the port is functioning fine with that.
What should I do to get the system working with my usb drives?
I've updated my system to the latest with software update.
murkus

Hi Murkus,
try to reset your PRAM to "refresh" your usb port.
Check the thumbdrive and external HD web site for firmware updater / patch on their sites.
And if you have power adapter for the external. try to use that too, or use Y usb cable to connect both end on one side to macbook to get more power and the other single end to your external.
Also try to leave those connected and restart your macbook, hopefully it will mount during start up process.
Good Luck.

[SOLVED] Mounted USB stick immediately unmounts itself - why?

Hi all,
I thought I was unable to mount a USB stick, however it does actually mount but then it gets immediately unmounted by something:
# mount /dev/sdd1 /mnt
# ls /mnt
<empty folder>
# umount /mnt
umount: /mnt: not mounted
# mount /dev/sdd1 /mnt && ls /mnt
<contents of USB stick>
# ls /mnt
<empty folder>
Somehow the USB stick is getting automatically *unmounted* almost immediately after I mount it!
I don't have any automounts enabled, so I'm not sure why this would happen. If I make a different folder (e.g. /root/test) and mount it there then it sticks, it is only the /mnt folder that gets automatically unmounted.
Any idea what's going on? I've never seen this happen before, and last time I tried this (a week or two ago) it worked fine.
Last edited by Malvineous (2015-03-15 01:15:16)

brebs wrote:Use "mount -v" (i.e. "verbose") to get some feedback - it's most likely not being mounted.
Like I said in my first post, if you run "ls" immediately after the mount then you can see the contents of the USB stick, so it's definitely getting mounted, but waiting only a few hundred milliseconds after the mount reveals it has been unmounted again. What is causing the unmount is unknown.
brebs wrote:
Immediately after running that mount command, run:
echo $?
To see the return code. It should be 0.
Yes it is zero, because the mount command succeeds. "ls" wouldn't be able to list the files on the USB stick if the mount failed. It is something else that is unmounting the folder mere milliseconds after it is successfully mounted, but I don't know where else to look to find out what it could be.
brebs wrote:Also, mounting to /mnt is very weird - you should be mounting a directory *inside* /mnt.
I am mounting inside /mnt, I just used /mnt as an example to keep things simple.
Vain wrote:
I made the same “mistake”. Try running “systemctl status mnt.mount” and see which device the output refers to. For me, it still listed the old device name. Hence, when you mount it, systemd tries to find the (old) device—which it can’t—and thus unmounts your device immediately.
I was too lazy/annoyed to find out how to solve this properly. I rebooted my system.
Interesting idea! Unfortunately I have nothing listed for this particular mount point. The only *.mount services on my system are the ones that are mounted at boot (e.g. srv.mount for /srv). I have the "noauto" option against this mount point in fstab (as USB sticks aren't normally attached to my system when I boot) so sensibly enough I don't seem to have a mount service running for this particular mount point.

How to access files in USB stick when installing from it?

I have prepared my installable USB stick (8G) from Arch 2009.02 ISO file, and copied some configuration files to the USB stick. Everything looks well.
After the Arch installation (not reboot yet), I want to access my configuration files on the stick, but I just cannot find them. Where has my USB stick been mounted to, and how can I read the files on it?
I am confused...:rolleyes:

lilsirecho wrote:To mount your USB stick you can mount it as root. Using sd(x) as an example, mkdir /mnt/sd(x) in /mnt...
Of course I tried this, but failed. Well, maybe what I said above is not explicit enough. I mean:
1. the USB stick is just the installable USB stick I used to install Arch;
2. not mounting the USB stick on the system I've installed, but just on the live arch linux OS that the installable USB stick introduced.
After all, I was booting from the USB stick, so it may have been mounted. In fact, I can find it by:
# cat /proc/mounts
In the output, my USB stick is /dev/sdb1, and the mounted directory is /bootxxx (not remembered, sorry), but I JUST cannot find this directory. So I was confused.
lilsirecho wrote:...Confused here that you used an .iso to generate a USB stick installer when the download archlinux-2009.02 is available in .img format for both i686 and X86_64...
Yes, I know there's an IMG file for USB stick. But I don't want to use it, because after I use "dd" command writing the IMG file to the USB stick, the stick became the same size (about 330Mb) as the IMG file. Then how can I copy some other files into this 8G USB stick?
So, I used archlinux-2009.02 ISO file. I prepared my USB stick by cfdisk, and formated it. I mounted the ISO file to some directory (using abc as an example), and copied all the files in abc to my USB stick, then installed grub on it. Finally, an installable 8G USB stick was made.
Last edited by cwjiof (2009-02-19 09:24:29)

Removing the USB stick during suspend

I'm using Gnome and Nautilus as my volume manager, have the latest stable packages, on a Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop.
Suspend is set up to work through uswsusp.
Now if I insert a USB stick it is mounted automagically and works great, then I suspend, and while the laptop is suspended I remove the USB stick (happens sometimes, eg. forgot to remove it before), then after I resume Nautilus still shows that the stick is mounted . A user can't unmount it, only root can. Is there a way to fix this? Force HAL(?) to rescan what hardware is connected and adjust mountpoints accordingly or something?
Any hints would be appreciated.
Thanks
Last edited by Hohoho (2008-10-05 13:28:34)

and while the laptop is suspended I remove the USB stick (happens sometimes, eg. forgot to remove it before)
You would do yourself a huge favor by waking it up and removing it, instead of removing it while in suspend, because eventually you *will* ruin the filesystem on it.
It is not a solution, but, very good advice. I hope you don't mind.
I guess you could create a pm script to unmount devices that match a pattern, say the UUID or LABEL of the stick? That would be executed upon suspending your machine.

No usb sticks show up on my mackbook pro

Hi,
I have a big dilema, any usb stick that i insert does not show on my macbook pro. Card readers work, Usb Drives (backup drives) work but USB Sticks don't work at all. I have tried about 3 or 4 different ones. Some error happened about a week a go when I was transferring some .f4v files to some USB Sticks, it worked on one but when i transferred to another it gave me some error and it all stopped working since. Also, now when i put a USB Stick in, the whole desktop freezes.
I have the latest software installed.
Can someone offer some support?
Thanks

SMC reset for MBP:
1. Shut down the computer.
Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
2. On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
3. Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
4. Press the power button to turn on the computer.

I get /Volumes/Untitled is not a valid volume mount point when I try to use teminal to make bootable usb stick

I get /Volumes/Untitled is not a valid volume mount point when I try to use teminal to make bootable usb stick. Why and what do I do to fix this. Very frustrating. Thanks for any help. Btw, I went through all the steps properly more than once to fomat and partition etc.
John

FYI
my process just completed: here is what I see when it is done... (the first you saw in my earlier post. It took about 15-20 minutes.
To continue we need to erase the disk at /Volumes/Recovery.
If you wish to continue type (Y) then press return: y
Erasing Disk: 0%... 10%... 20%... 30%...100%...
Copying installer files to disk...
Copy complete.
Making disk bootable...
Copying boot files...
Copy complete.
Done.

Problem mounting usb stick with ISO installed on it [SOLVED]

I'm experiencing a weird problem regarding mounting usb sticks. Archlinux stopped auto-mounting usb sticks on my machine, but only those that contains an operating system. Empty or data usb sticks mount without problem.
A few weeks or month ago, I don't remember exactly, still everything was all right, but due to updates(?) usb sticks won't auto mount any more.
I have two arch partitions none of them mount usb sticks anymore with operating systems on them.
Today, I wanted to test a new operating system and write it on my usb stick, and of course I couldn't because arch didn't mount it. Luckily, on my other partitions a few old distos are still installed – I don't use them anymore for years- I booted them up and they mounted the usb stick without problem; it seems only the up-to-date system have problem handling the usb sticks. I have two Arch system installed on two different partitions, Gnome 3 and Enlightenment, both system are up to date.
Here are some info:
[mak@myhost ~]$ dmesg | grep -E "sd[a-z]"
[ 1.369732] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] 234441648 512-byte logical blocks: (120 GB/111 GiB)
[ 1.369819] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[ 1.369821] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 1.369872] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 1.369924] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] 625142448 512-byte logical blocks: (320 GB/298 GiB)
[ 1.369982] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 1.369985] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 1.370070] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 1.371642] sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4 sda5 sda6
[ 1.372298] sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
[ 1.429438] sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3 sdb4 sdb5 sdb6 sdb7 sdb8 sdb9
[ 1.430159] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
[ 2.244580] EXT4-fs (sda5): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
[ 2.348031] systemd[1]: Expecting device dev-sdb8.device...
[ 2.362842] EXT4-fs (sda5): re-mounted. Opts: discard,data=ordered
[ 3.358252] Adding 2097148k swap on /dev/sdb8. Priority:-1 extents:1 across:2097148k FS
[ 5.458907] EXT4-fs (sda5): re-mounted. Opts: discard,data=ordered,commit=0
[ 52.120360] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] 15679488 512-byte logical blocks: (8.02 GB/7.47 GiB)
[ 52.121310] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
[ 52.121319] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
[ 52.122191] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page present
[ 52.122199] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 52.125825] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page present
[ 52.125838] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 52.126999] sdc: sdc1 sdc2
[ 52.131071] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page present
[ 52.131084] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 52.131093] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
[mak@myhost ~]$
[root@myhost mak]# fdisk -l
WARNING: fdisk GPT support is currently new, and therefore in an experimental phase. Use at your own discretion.
Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes, 234441648 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk label type: gpt
# Start End Size Type Name
1 2048 18431 8M BIOS boot parti BIOS boot
2 18432 56641478 27G Linux filesyste sda2
3 56641536 113264582 27G Linux filesyste sda3
4 113264640 169887686 27G Linux filesyste sda4
5 169887744 226510790 27G Linux filesyste sda5
6 226510848 234441614 3.8G Linux filesyste Spare
WARNING: fdisk GPT support is currently new, and therefore in an experimental phase. Use at your own discretion.
Disk /dev/sdb: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes, 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk label type: gpt
# Start End Size Type Name
1 2048 18431 8M BIOS boot parti Bios boot
2 18432 54544383 26G Microsoft basic Partition 2
3 54544384 109070335 26G Linux filesyste Partition 3
4 109070336 163596287 26G Microsoft basic
5 163596288 218122239 26G EFI System Partition 5
6 218122240 272647630 26G Microsoft basic Partition 6
7 272648192 327174143 26G Linux filesyste Partition 7
8 327174144 331368447 2G Linux swap Swap
9 331368448 625142414 140.1G Linux filesyste Storage
Disk /dev/sdc: 8027 MB, 8027897856 bytes, 15679488 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x5fadc669
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 0 4040703 2020352 0 Empty
/dev/sdc2 4036 38595 17280 ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
Disk /dev/sdc1: 2068 MB, 2068840448 bytes, 4040704 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x5fadc669
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1p1 * 0 4040703 2020352 0 Empty
/dev/sdc1p2 4036 38595 17280 ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
[root@myhost mak]#
[root@myhost mak]# blkid -o list -c /dev/null
device fs_type label mount point UUID
/dev/sda1 (not mounted)
/dev/sda2 ext4 (not mounted) 0a76a275-1798-495b-aa27-732626029de2
/dev/sda3 ext4 (not mounted) 0e9363ef-3791-409c-8db9-393385007689
/dev/sda4 ext4 (not mounted) 8f043c02-8b56-4689-a0ee-ed34ccc6f21f
/dev/sda5 ext4 / 82699b0e-8fe9-41e2-be13-65c798ed8a73
/dev/sda6 ext4 (not mounted) 3eaab6bf-2d05-4a7b-a6f7-8675e5f18723
/dev/sdb1 (not mounted)
/dev/sdb2 ext4 (not mounted) 17069311-9f14-4430-8298-be48194eb874
/dev/sdb3 ext4 (not mounted) 2e3b383d-3fa7-40df-b52d-c5d07caf252e
/dev/sdb4 ext4 (not mounted) 9d9b0656-d4ca-4efa-b6f8-1797bd4ead1f
/dev/sdb5 ext4 (not mounted) 05abf58a-ae6e-4377-9b3d-d6bacd92226d
/dev/sdb6 ext4 (not mounted) 8d7c6d55-dc47-471f-84f6-aae8864dfdd7
/dev/sdb7 ext4 (not mounted) b2155741-8f88-4063-bd1b-39b210004b17
/dev/sdb8 swap <swap> 97cf7cdf-299c-4e0d-a438-c8b79766699c
/dev/sdb9 ext4 (not mounted) 426648fd-98f5-4fb0-9114-bdbdfea9047c
/dev/sdc1 udf Sabayon GNOME (not mounted) 2013-07-29-13-08-13-27
/dev/sdc2 vfat (not mounted) CF68-C2B6
[root@myhost mak]#
Thanks for the help.
jmak
Last edited by jmak (2013-08-14 00:12:54)

cfr wrote:
What is sdc1p? Is that another USB stick? It seems to have an equally weird partition map.
By the way, you can't create an Arch USB bootable in EFI mode with dd. Obviously don't know about sabayon.
EDIT: Did you dd to the disk or to a partition? What command exactly did you use? Because it almost looks as if you did something like dd once and create one thing and then dd over the top of one of the partition so you've got a partition which itself has a partition map. Not sure that's possible but it sure looks weird.
I would wipe the key and start over.
I don't know what is that. It is a partition on the same usb stick, it was the “dd” that made that partition automatically, I guess. When I burn images into usb, I always use this command:
# dd bs=4M if=/path/to/archlinux.iso of=/dev/sdx && sync
I used this when burned Sabayon and it works perfectly.
The problem is that Arch can't auto-mount its own installation usb either. I put the arch install usb in and I get the following output:
[root@myhost mak]# blkid -o list -c /dev/null
device fs_type label mount point UUID
/dev/sda1 (not mounted)
/dev/sda2 ext4 (not mounted) 0a76a275-1798-495b-aa27-732626029de2
/dev/sda3 ext4 (not mounted) 0e9363ef-3791-409c-8db9-393385007689
/dev/sda4 ext4 (not mounted) 8f043c02-8b56-4689-a0ee-ed34ccc6f21f
/dev/sda5 ext4 / 82699b0e-8fe9-41e2-be13-65c798ed8a73
/dev/sda6 ext4 (not mounted) 3eaab6bf-2d05-4a7b-a6f7-8675e5f18723
/dev/sdb1 (not mounted)
/dev/sdb2 ext4 (not mounted) 17069311-9f14-4430-8298-be48194eb874
/dev/sdb3 ext4 (not mounted) 2e3b383d-3fa7-40df-b52d-c5d07caf252e
/dev/sdb4 ext4 (not mounted) 9d9b0656-d4ca-4efa-b6f8-1797bd4ead1f
/dev/sdb5 ext4 (not mounted) 05abf58a-ae6e-4377-9b3d-d6bacd92226d
/dev/sdb6 ext4 (not mounted) 8d7c6d55-dc47-471f-84f6-aae8864dfdd7
/dev/sdb7 ext4 (not mounted) b2155741-8f88-4063-bd1b-39b210004b17
/dev/sdb8 swap <swap> 97cf7cdf-299c-4e0d-a438-c8b79766699c
/dev/sdb9 ext4 /run/media/mak/426648fd-98f5-4fb0-9114-bdbdfea9047c 426648fd-98f5-4fb0-9114-bdbdfea9047c
/dev/sdc1 iso9660 ARCH_201305 (not mounted) 2013-05-01-07-12-33-00
[root@myhost mak]#
It doesn't appear in nautilus side panel.
Last edited by jmak (2013-08-13 02:44:45)

My USB-Stick is marked busy even though not mounted (?)

Also Subject lines are too short.
Hello there, my name is Ayutac, I use Arch for some while now and I probably screwed up.
tl;dr: My USB-Stick is marked busy even though not mounted (?)
Previous History: I was trying to get the newest Arch iso on a stick of my friend, so I got the iso here and moved the stick's content to my extern hard drive. I used the opportunity to experiment how good "mv -t target_dir *" would work and interrupted it because I was stupid. Two folders somehow weren't movable through mv anymore, so I mv'ed everything else – now explicit – and moved the content of the two folders via pcmanfm. After that there were about 16kB on the stick left.
Next I copied the iso using
dd bs=4M if=/path/to/archlinux.iso of=/dev/sdc && sync
as suggested by the wiki. I looked at the stick; to my surprise the two folders I left there where still there, though filled with gibberish data. I thought I might give it a try, shut down, booted from stick. Black screen with a blinking text cursor for minutes. I concluded it didn't work and tried some other way. Following the wiki I was given the task to format the usb stick anew.
Thinking I knew what I was doing I used fdisk several times (including rebooting), getting myself two partitions with FAT32 (or so I think). But that somehow screwed it up.
The problem: After partioning and rebooting it seems I can't mount the partitions to copy the content of the iso. lsblk says
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 21.7G 0 part
├─sda2 8:2 0 350M 0 part
├─sda3 8:3 0 95.4G 0 part
├─sda4 8:4 0 1K 0 part
├─sda5 8:5 0 95.4G 0 part /
├─sda6 8:6 0 7.6G 0 part [SWAP]
└─sda7 8:7 0 711.1G 0 part /home
sdb 8:16 0 465.8G 0 disk
└─sdb1 8:17 0 465.8G 0 part /run/media/nait/nanika
sdc 8:32 1 3.6G 0 disk
├─sdc1 8:33 1 650M 0 part
└─sdc2 8:34 1 3G 0 part
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom
(sdc is the stick) but I get
> sudo mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/usb
mount: /dev/sdc1 is already mounted or /mnt/usb busy
> sudo umount /mnt/usb
umount: /mnt/usb: not mounted
Furthermore "lsof | grep sdc" returns nothing, neither does "cat /proc/mounts | grep sdc" or "cat /etc/mtab | grep sdc". The only clue is
> systemctl -a | grep sdc
dev-sdc.device loaded active plugged 1000 ARCH_201409
dev-sdc1.device loaded active plugged 1000 ARCH_201409
dev-sdc2.device loaded active plugged 1000 ARCH_201409
sys-devices-pci0000:00-0000:00:14.0-usb3-3\x2d3-3\x2d3:1.0-host9-target9:0:0-9:0:0:0-block-sdc-sdc1.device loaded active plugged 1000 ARCH_201409
sys-devices-pci0000:00-0000:00:14.0-usb3-3\x2d3-3\x2d3:1.0-host9-target9:0:0-9:0:0:0-block-sdc-sdc2.device loaded active plugged 1000 ARCH_201409
sys-devices-pci0000:00-0000:00:14.0-usb3-3\x2d3-3\x2d3:1.0-host9-target9:0:0-9:0:0:0-block-sdc.device loaded active plugged 1000 ARCH_201409
I tried to shut the devices down, but that didn't seem to work.
Furthermore the pcmanfm shows two mount points of the iso/stick but returns error message when clicking on them:
Error mounting /dev/sdc1 at /run/media/nait/ARCH_201409: Command-line `mount -t "iso9660" -o "uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid,uid=1000,gid=100,iocharset=utf8,mode=0400,dmode=0500" "/dev/sdc1" "/run/media/nait/ARCH_201409"' exited with non-zero exit status 32: mount: /dev/sdc1 is write-protected, mounting read-only
mount: /dev/sdc1 is already mounted or /run/media/nait/ARCH_201409 busy
Goal:
1. Make the stick usable again, with 2 partitions.
2. Copy the iso on the first partition.
3. Have a functioning Arch booting stick.

Welcome to Arch Linux.
A few questions and comments. First, are the files you copied from the disk safe? Since the plan was to wipe the disk anyway, I would suggest next time copying rather than moving files. I always get itchy when I move files. I have made some stupid mistakes where I copied hundreds of files to one output file, each one overwriting the previous. Of course, as it was a move, the source file was gone as well. Fortunately, I maintain backups. I would also suggest you look into the rsync facility when doing bulk copies.
That said, another excellent way to destroy data is the dd command (There are those who claim dd means just that) Are you certain that the usb disk had been been placed at the /dev/sda node? In the thread title, you made the assertion that the drive was not mounted. dd will run just fine even if the disk is mounted (I do not recommend this). What were you using to look at those folders that had become full of gibberish? Command line tools? A graphical file manager? (Nautilus, Thunar, Dolphin, SpaceFM) It is possible that the tool you were using was unaware that the contents had changed and was using cached information.
As to your goals. First, copying the iso to /dev/sdc tells the system to use the entire device for the iso, not the first partition. Our iso is not designed to be placed in a partition, I don't think you will meet with success trying to block copy the iso to a partition. If you want to try it, the destination would be /dev/sda1 (for partition 1) Make sure the partition is large enough. I would suggest that you use the entire disk by dd'ing the iso to the /dev/sdc (assuming it is c) node, but make certain that all of the partitions are dismounted. I know you think you did that, but I have my doubts. Please use command line tools. I don't trust GUIs that try to help too much.
If you want multiple partitions, use fdisk and re-partition the device. Then create a file system in each of those partitions.
It has been a while since I have tried to master a USB that will boot. I may have a faulty memory, or I may be using really old, outdated, information, but... I think that a USB has to boot as if it were a CD drive . I am not certain that a hard drive type structure with multiple partitions and a MBR will work on a USB drive (edit)and have it be bootable. In other words, goal 1 and goal 2 might not be achievable if goal 3 means that the disk will boot. I could be wrong.
Last edited by ewaller (2014-09-27 16:18:25)

I have a new MacAir and don't know how to get info from my USB stick and my SD photo card. Can anyone help me please?

I have a new MacBook Air and don't know how to get info from my USB stick and get info from my SD card. Can anyone help, please?

Plug the stick and/or card into the appropriate slots on the side of your Air. Do you see icons for the devices appear on the desktop? Click into them to see what files are there.
Matt

Usb stick not mounting as user

I cannot mount the usb stick as user. When I plug the stick in the kde window comes up indicating it is in and goes to a new window and has an error. Following is an error from xsession:
kded: ERROR: mount failed for /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_709E_ED39: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.AccessDenied - A security policy in place prevents this sender from sending this message to this recipient, see message bus configuration file (rejected message had interface "org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume" member "Mount" error name "(unset)" destination "org.freedesktop.Hal")
kded: ERROR: mounting /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_709E_ED39 returned A security policy in place prevents this sender from sending this message to this recipient, see message bus configuration file (rejected message had interface "org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume" member "Mount" error name "(unset)" destination "org.freedesktop.Hal")
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
fifo_audio_out: audio buffer underflow!
X Error: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter) 3
Major opcode: 19
Minor opcode: 0
Resource id: 0x3400387
konqueror: WARNING: Pixmap not found for mimetype inode/socket
X Error: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter) 3
Major opcode: 19
Minor opcode: 0
Resource id: 0x3a00006
X Error: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter) 3
Major opcode: 20
Minor opcode: 0
Resource id: 0x3a00006
But when I switch to root everything works fine, I can read and write to the stick. I tried from the wiki :
dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbstick vfat noauto,user 0 0 and this did nothing.

Users worked and now everything is good thank. Solved

USB Sticks don't mount

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