First partition of three is mounted, USB drive reset every few minutes

[R Barakat]

Binary package hint: gnome-utils

When connecting a Western Digital External USB drive only the first partition of three is mounted after much effort from the system. The nautilus window then pops up, and browsing seems to work, although very slowly. After closing the window (and all other open nautilus windows) it becomes impossible to start up again. Unplugging the drive causes all previously request actions ot be performed (so if you clicked "Computer" three times in the Places menu then you'll suddenly have three windows open to "Computer").

Note that below the drive is listed as sdb, yet entering -$ sudo fdisk -l only returns the host drive (this is a Wubi install):

Disk /dev/sda: 119.8 GB, 119834104320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14569 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1e6c7f98

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 14569 117025461 7 HPFS/NTFS

On the external drive itself two partitions (the first and last) are in NTFS and one is in FAT32. Similar hangs are happening when I try to mount it in Windows, so there could be a problem with the drive itself. I have tried it on two USB ports out of four, and it sometimes works on one of them (which I think again suggests a problem with the drive itself rather than the computer or the OS).

The computer in question is a Toshiba Satellite M55-S351. Note that the drive shows activity while it is plugged in and continues to do so if unplugged.

Jun 8 01:37:22 rayad-laptop kernel: [ 3237.921502] usb 5-5: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
Jun 8 01:37:22 rayad-laptop kernel: [ 3238.070590] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK
Jun 8 01:37:22 rayad-laptop kernel: [ 3238.070603] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 58636011
Jun 8 01:37:22 rayad-laptop kernel: [ 3238.185441] usb 5-5: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
Jun 8 01:37:22 rayad-laptop kernel: [ 3238.334558] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK

And (this line come up after unplugging the drive)
Jun 8 01:40:54 rayad-laptop kernel: [ 3491.966382] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb2

Ubuntu 8.04

Good night all!

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun Jun 8 01:26:31 2008
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/gnome-system-log
Package: gnome-utils 2.20.0.1-1ubuntu5
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-utils
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-18-generic i686

Edit: I'm now pretty sure that the problem is with the hard drive because of similar behaviour in Windows. Nonetheless, it would be nice if the system handled this a little better.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

[kernel-janitor (kernel-janitor)]

Hi rayadbarakat,

This bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ .

If it remains an issue, could you run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux-image-`uname -r` 238292

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

This bug report was marked as Incomplete and has not had any updated comments for quite some time. As a result this bug is being closed. Please reopen if this is still an issue in the current Ubuntu release http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download . Also, please be sure to provide any requested information that may have been missing. To reopen the bug, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]