USB harddisk problem

Hello,

I have a serious problem with external usb hard drives and a new
debian squeeze on a laptop.

The symptoms are

What it works:
- When I mount a previously an usb hard drive formatted using another
computer (linux or windows) the first time it mounts well, either by
command line as root or using user-space mounting under gnome, but
when I dismount it and mout again the partiition is unusable
- When I partition an usb hard drive I get all the disc corrupted
despite gparted or fdisk works well without error. If I try to mount
again on another computer it says that there is not partition table.
- When I try to format a partition already created on another computer
on command line it says nothing (the usual stuff with no errors) but
it doesn't work. If I do it using Disk Utility (graphical tool) I get
an error at the end saying the following:

--------------------------------8<--------------------------------------------------------------------
Error creating file system: helper exited with exit code 1: cannot
mount /dev/sdb1 at /tmp/job-mkfs-dyPZfO: Invalid argument

Filesystem label=BACKUP1
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
61054976 inodes, 244189952 blocks
12209497 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=0
7453 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
8192 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
102400000, 214990848

Writing inode tables: 0/7453 ... 7452/7453done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 33 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
--------------------------------8<--------------------------------------------------------------------

What it works:

- The funny thing: I have reinstalled twice the computer, each time
the same. If I make the same using the netboot debian cd install,
under installation I can format, mount and use the disk on this
computer without problem
- If using vmware player I use any usb hard drive using linux or
windows as guest operating systems without problems
- If I use flash usb drives I can do everything without problem
(partiiton, format, ...)
- I have tried 3 hard drives of 2 different vendors, and on other
computers all of then work

The dmesg output of an usb flash is the following:

-- [297333.792573] usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd
and address 5
[297333.924957] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0781, idProduct=5151
[297333.924966] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2,
SerialNumber=3
[297333.924973] usb 1-1: Product: Cruzer Micro
[297333.924978] usb 1-1: Manufacturer: SanDisk
[297333.924983] usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 1741031395038477
[297333.925197] usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[297333.926674] scsi11 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[297333.926915] usb-storage: device found at 5
[297333.926920] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[297338.924943] usb-storage: device scan complete
[297338.925485] scsi 11:0:0:0: Direct-Access SanDisk Cruzer
7.01 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
[297338.926671] sd 11:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
[297338.927557] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdc] 15794175 512-byte logical blocks:
(8.08 GB/7.53 GiB)
[297338.928053] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
[297338.928061] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 45 00 00 08
[297338.928067] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[297338.929923] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[297338.929930] sdc: unknown partition table
[297338.934278] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through

- The usb harddrive when I mount is the following:
[300333.589032] usb 2-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 7
[300333.721585] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=14cd, idProduct=6116
[300333.721594] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=3,
SerialNumber=2
[300333.721601] usb 2-1: Product: USB Mass Storage Device
[300333.721606] usb 2-1: Manufacturer: Generic
[300333.721611] usb 2-1: SerialNumber: 116AC2101219
[300333.721828] usb 2-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[300333.723542] scsi12 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[300333.723864] usb-storage: device found at 7
[300333.723869] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[300338.720282] usb-storage: device scan complete
[300338.720870] scsi 12:0:0:0: Direct-Access Mass Storage
Device PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
[300338.722245] sd 12:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[300338.726135] sd 12:0:0:0: [sdb] 1953525166 512-byte logical blocks:
(1.00 TB/931 GiB)
[300338.726701] sd 12:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[300338.726708] sd 12:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
[300338.726714] sd 12:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[300338.727948] sd 12:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[300338.727955] sdb: sdb1
[300338.753576] sd 12:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through

As you can see it's basically the same (same driver thought)

I've been working with linux systems for 15 years and it's the first
time I have this problem.

Can anybody give me some directions of what to do? It keeps me astonished!

Thanks in advance.

_______________________________________

Josep Llauradó Selvas

josep.llaurado AT gmail.com
_______________________________________


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