OK, so this bug has recently started affecting me too, on my laptop. I am getting the infamous -- and serious -- message that says, "Cannot mount volume. Invalid mount option when attempting to mount the volume 'drivename'." Here goes nothing.

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Intro

I have two computers, as desktop and a laptop. The desktop computer is running Ubuntu 8.04 LTS 32-bit. It has had absolutely no problems working with usb drives of any sort. The laptop is also running Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, but the 64-bit version. The fact that 64-bit Ubuntu is the one giving me problems might be important. Both OS's were freshly installed within the last week.

The laptop has had absolutely no problems working with flash drives until yesterday. Heck, I even installed Ubuntu from a flash drive.

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The "first flash drive" problem

I have several flash drives, all formatted as FAT32 (otherwise known as VFAT?). The order I plug flash drives into my laptop DOES matter.

--The first flash drive I plug will not automatically mount.
--I can manually mount the first flash drive.
--The second flash drive I plug in will automatically mount.

--Here's the output of sudo fdisk -l with two flash drives plugged in.

==== begin quote ====
ichimonji10@ichimonji10-laptop:/media$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x90ff53b7

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1        1828    14680064   27  Unknown
/dev/sda2   *        1828       25422   189515772    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3           25423       38913   108366457+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5           38416       38913     4000185   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6           25423       38414   104358177   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 2055 MB, 2055019008 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 249 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb0020e6e

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1         249     2000061    b  W95 FAT32
ichimonji10@ichimonji10-laptop:/media$ 
==== end quote ====

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Fixes Attempted

I first attempted to remove the "usefree" option in gconf-editor. Obviously, the fix did not work. The solution is briefly outlined here: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/2008-October/163940.html

I secondly attempted to change HAL settings, as outlined in post #13 of this thread. Restarted hal using the command "/etc/init.d/hal restart" Did not help. After attempting fix, reverted to previous settings. By the way, post #12 seems like it could be helpful, but the link is broken. Can anyone help with that?

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Other Oddities

My laptop has no CD drive, yet even with no external devices plugged in "ls -l /media" gives me

==== begin quote ====
total 4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    6 2009-08-21 13:18 cdrom -> cdrom0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-08-21 13:18 cdrom0
==== end quote ====

Additionally, even with NO flash drives plugged in, "cat /etc/fstab" gives some strange output. Keep in mind that my laptop only has one hard drive. Is there any good reason for an entry for /dev/sdb1 or /media/cdrom0 to exist? Would the fact that /dev/sdb1 and /media/cdrom0 exist in fstab mean that conflicts occur when (hal? gconf) attempts to mount the the first flash drive?

==== begin quote ====
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
# /dev/sda6
UUID=0929e5a2-b80a-4942-8f54-e6832c5e02b9 /               ext3    relatime,errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /dev/sda5
UUID=a2a146b8-1aa8-46fc-b718-2ccade87d849 none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/sdb1       /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0       0
==== end quote ====

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End

I'll post some dmesg and debug files below. In the mean time, I guess I'll just have to make a script to automagically mount USB flash drives, unless the community can figure something out.