J.L. Coenders wrote:
Dear all,
I am having some strange problems with my USB external disks, since that I
have bought a new one.
I used to have:
- a 80 Gb drive which I usually carry around with a lot of data on it. (on
FAT32, because I also need it at work (Windows))
- a 200 Gb drive which I have constantly connected as a backup drive (with
ext3).
Now I have a additional 300 Gb drive to replace the backup drive with ext3. I
would like to use the 80 and 200 Gb with FAT32 on them to carry around and
back them up on the 300 Gb. They all sit on the USB 2.0 controller.
But now the trouble starts...
Several problems occur:
a) It starts when I try to copy a large amount of data (lots of Mb's and lots
of files) from the 80 Gb drive to the 200 Gb drive. Somehow, rsync or
programs like midnight commander lock up.
b) The same thing happens when I copy a large amount of data from the 300 Gb
to itself (in another directory).
Somehow, earlier I managed to get all my data from the 200 Gb drive to the 300
Gb without any problem. It seems to me that the problem is not related to any
of the drives or the file-systems.
c) When I try to shut down, X Windows quits, but Linux wont shut down.
Commands like shutdown, reboot, poweroff, ctrl-alt-del and the power switch
anounce shut down, but do nothing. Only a blunt pulling the plug seems to
work. Killing processes like usb-storage do not seem to work either. Note
that the system keeps running.
d) A strange which seems to happen, when I for instance only connect the 300
Gb drive, let it lock up by transferring a lot of data, but then connect one
of the other drives after attempting shutdown. Output of the detection gets
dumped on the console with the correct information about the USB device. So,
it seems that Linux detects a new USB connection properly.
My conclusion so far:
- It is not the drives.
- It is not the file-systems
- It is not the usb-controller (since it seems to keep working)
But somehow the process locks up with a large amount of data. Does anyone know
what could be wrong? Or how to further test this problem to find out what is
wrong? Or perhaps knows what I am doing wrong?
I have googled, searched the list archives and did a lot of testing, but I am
still in the dark. Also the logs do not show anything odd.
If somebody could help me out, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Jeroen
Some info on my system:
PIV 1.4 Ghz, 768 Mb RAM, USB2.0 controller
$ uname -r
2.6.10-2.3.legacy_FC2
TIME TO UPGRADE!
I wish I could help, but the only thing I can suggest is that you try
a new kernel; you're 6 major revs back and no kernel developer is
going to help you. The USB subsystem has had major surgery since this
version was released.
Regards,
John
