[SOLVED] usb msdos drives don't work anymore

My usb msdos drives don't work anymore. For a while sticks didn't work either. Now it is the 2.5" drives that can't be recognized or can't write if they can. They work perfectly on winxp machine.

zorin 6 LTS
amd phenom 4x & 6x
msi boards
4 & 8 GB ram

Everything worked last week.

Hi,

try doing a full system update by running "DPKG" per this guide:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2247

A network cable connection is required!.

Let us know if it helps.

Regards Wolfman

I tried the dpkg repair and update commands. It removed 4 items not needed and loaded 0 new items.

I am still having trouble with the usb drives formatted on winXP.

Hi,

I can only suggest you try a repair disk and run FSCK to check each drive, can you start Gparted and check the disk formatting that way?.

http://partedmagic.com/doku.php

Let us know what happens.

Regards Wolfman

I got and ran the newest p-magic. The WD passport is detected and checks out fine on all machines. After a reformat it is detected under zorin 6 but a file write freezes up and after that it is not detected. All usb drives are undetected until the WD is unplugged. After that it is not detected. The 160 GB usb drive is detected and checks out only on an old HP machine.
The drives all still work on the HP under winXP. Kernel Linux 3.2.0-52-generic-pae seem to not like these drives.

Hi Billy,

you are running a 32 bit version of Zorin on a 64 bit PC, have you considered running the 64 bit version of Zorin??.

Regards Wolfman

I ran zorin 7 & 6 64 bit on the six core machine but it would not run executable files and the video drivers didn't work for mirror screens with the onboard radeon or an nvidia card. I went back to 6lts to make the machines useful.
I also was not happy with the file browser and zorin menus on ver7.

Hi Billy,

have you checked the "Automount Status" of "Dconf-Editor"?, open dconf-editor and to Stop/Start Media Auto Mounting:

Dconf Editor > Org > Gnome > Desktop > Media-Handling > Automount/Automount-open/Autorun Never

It might help!????????.

See this thread too:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4460&p=25526#p25526

Let us know if it changes anything.

Regards Wolfman

Where do I find the dconf editor?

Also can you please check via synaptics package manager if you have the "ntfs3g" package installed?

I installed every ntfs package, dconf, dconf-tools and then ran editor. I set autorun to never.
after reboot the WD passport was recognised but file copy crashed before it started.
Disk utility can't recognise the file system or reformat. The machine will not shut or boot with the drive plugged in.
It works on winXP but the empty folders from the copy attempt are corrupt and can't be deleted. After a win reformat it is recognised again on zorin6.
Really, no change.

Thanks.

I did install dconf and dconf- tools from terminal after a few hours of trial and error,
The "Code: Select all" line does't do anything.

It seems odd that dconf and the startup apps do no install by default. I have been looking for some of those settings for weeks.

I see, I was useing a mouse sweep to highlite, right click, copy and pasted the whole thing into terminal.

Thanks.

Hi,

"Startup Applications" can be found under: > Menu > System Tools > Preferences > Startup Applications, see also:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2406

Regards Wolfman

The point I was making is that starup apps come up blank until you install them from terminal.

Hi Billy,

I am not quite sure what you mean by your last quote?, what apps are you talking about?.

Regards Wolfman

I mean if you go
"> Menu > System Tools > Preferences > Startup Applications"

it shows a blank list unless you install :

sudo sed -i 's/NoDisplay=true/NoDisplay=false/g' /etc/xdg/autostart/*.desktop

Most users would not know about that.

Hi Billy,

yes you are right but there is sadly nothing we can do to change that, that is something that Ubuntu left out because they don't want people mucking around with the startup apps menu I can only assume!. That is why I created this guide/how-to:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2406

Regards Wolfman

I installed zorin 6.4 64bit on the 6 core machine and the usb drives work fine!
I fixed the nvidia by turning off compiz>animations>dodge.

However firefox and flashplayer crash frequently. System errors are frequent. x-executable files will not run.

Hi,

try doing a full system update by running "DPKG" per this guide:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2247

A network cable connection is required!.

Let us know if it helps.

Regards Wolfman

Hi Billy,

I can only recommend that you try running DPKG again and see if updating fixes that problem with FF and Flash!. You can also change your software download location to see if there is an improvement, see the update guide for details:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2247

Let us know if that helps.

Regards Wolfman

When you plug your USB sticks or drives and they don't work, open terminal and run:

sudo modprobe usb-storage

Then wait for 4-5 seconds and see if they get recognized (the nautilus window will pop up showing the contents of the drive).
If this will work, I will tell you how to fix it permanently.

I ran dpkg many times to no avail.

What did work was reinstalling with zorin6.4 32 and 64 bit. USB hard drives worked after that.
32 bit worked well right away.
64 bit required a lot of repair and update to work well and executable files have never run.
They did run on the 32 bit up to a week ago. Now it shows "There is no application installed for executable files." and they do not run. They have always worked on 32 bit in the past.

Hi Billy,

make sure your system has this package installed, via a terminal:

Code:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs-multiarch:i386

(This package depends on i386 versions of packages that were removed from
ia32-libs and transitioned to multi-arch. This allows applications using
ia32-libs in previous Ubuntu releases to continue functioning without missing
libraries.)

and:

Code:

sudo apt-get install multiarch-support

(This is a transitional package used to ensure multiarch support is present
in ld.so before unpacking libraries to the multiarch directories. It can
be removed once nothing on the system depends on it.)

This one might not be needed!.

Let us know if it helps.

Regards Wolfman

Thanks for the effort. I ran them but they did not help.

Hi Billy,

it might be worth trying a forced update as it may be a case of missing dependencies?:

Code:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -f

Let us know if it helps.

Regards Wolfman

The reinstall with Zorin 6.4 was the only thing that worked. The system seems to work well.
I still can't run the executables but I have found a way to use another application.
It seems that 6.3 didn't work with the updates.

Thanks guys.

Hi Billy,

can we mark this as solved?.

Regards Wolfman

Hi Wolfman - I think it is safe to do so - have marked as [SOLVED].