viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 25, 2003 at 10:42:44AM +1000, Douglas Gilbert wrote:
> 
>>I have a USB 500 MB USB key that confuses linux (both 2.4 and
>>2.6) since it has no partition table. It shows up on my laptop as:
> 
> 
> Confuses it in which sense?

Al,
Under lk 2.4 (rh9) this is in my log:

Sep 25 10:37:53 localhost kernel: SCSI device sda: 1024000 512-byte hdwr 
sectors (524 MB)
Sep 25 10:37:53 localhost kernel: sda: Write Protect is off
Sep 25 10:37:53 localhost kernel:  sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4

Attached is sector 0 of the device and the output of
"fdisk -l".

lk 2.6.0-test5-bk10 also thinks the device has 4 malformed
partitions.

>>$ cat /proc/scsi/scsi
>>Attached devices:
>>Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
>>  Vendor: Prolific Model: USBFlashDisk     Rev: 1.00
>>  Type:   Direct-Access                    ANSI SCSI revision: 02
>>
>>I can mount it with:
>>$ mount /dev/sda /mnt/extra
> 
> 
> So it works fine.  what's the problem?

It is non obvious. W2K and XP handled the USB key without
a problem. An organisation bought a bunch of these USB
"floppies" and expected them to work with linux (like
other USB mass storage devices they had experienced). I
was given one to find out what was wrong ...


BTW Another interesting aspect of this USB key is that
some sectors read before they are ever written can give
a "medium error, unrecoverable read". Once the sector
is written the problem goes away. This shouldn't be a
problem in normal use. [I guess at least sector 0 is
written in the factory :-) ]

Doug Gilbert