Mp3 player mounted as a read-only device

My media devices such as MP3 players and such mount just fine on Edgy. It's done with pmount - is pmount installed?

What do you see at the end of dmesg when you plug the device in? Are you running GNOME/Ubuntu or KDE/Kubuntu?

yes, "pmount is already the newest version."

here is what comes up on dmesg :

[17179950.892000] ohci_hcd 0000:00:03.0: wakeup
[17179951.276000] usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 2
[17179951.488000] usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[17179951.620000] usbcore: registered new driver libusual
[17179951.688000] Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
[17179951.688000] scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[17179951.688000] usb-storage: device found at 2
[17179951.688000] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[17179951.688000] usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
[17179951.688000] USB Mass Storage support registered.
[17179956.688000] usb-storage: device scan complete
[17179956.696000] Vendor: Model: Rev:
[17179956.696000] Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 00
[17179956.704000] SCSI device sdb: 2014705 512-byte hdwr sectors (1032 MB)
[17179956.712000] sdb: Write Protect is off
[17179956.712000] sdb: Mode Sense: 00 c0 00 00
[17179956.712000] sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
[17179956.732000] SCSI device sdb: 2014705 512-byte hdwr sectors (1032 MB)
[17179956.740000] sdb: Write Protect is off
[17179956.740000] sdb: Mode Sense: 00 c0 00 00
[17179956.740000] sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
[17179956.740000] sdb: unknown partition table
[17179957.076000] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sdb
[17179957.076000] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
[17179957.708000] FAT: utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!
[17179960.992000] FAT: Filesystem panic (dev sdb)
[17179960.992000] fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 0)
[17179960.992000] File system has been set read-only
[17179960.996000] FAT: Filesystem panic (dev sdb)
[17179960.996000] fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 0)
[17179961.004000] FAT: Filesystem panic (dev sdb)
[17179961.004000] fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 0)
[17179961.012000] FAT: Filesystem panic (dev sdb)
[17179961.012000] fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 0)
wladston@wlad:~$

I would format the unit, but they removed the "disks" option on the edgy's menu, so I no longer know how to format disks on ubuntu...

Forgot to say : I'm on GNOME/Ubuntu.

You can install gparted which is the graphical disk admin tool you mentioned. If you're happy to reformat it then I'd do that as an initial starting point. Make sure you format it as vfat/fat32.

if you format it, won't you be deleting the firmware too? then it wouldn't work as an mp3 player. of course, I may be wrong.

In general the firmware for MP3 players isn't held on the hard disk or flash memory used for storing MP3s. It's usually held in a separate area or memory.

I'm familiar with gparted. But it's frustating to have to use that to format a disk .... how would the begginer user do ?

Reformated as fat16. (the partition format the s1mp3 supports).

towsonu2003: the firmware is held at a non-visible part of the NAND flash memory. It's impossible to access it in the "normal" mode, even a zero fill would not break it ;)

Gparted shows that : "Open /dev/sdb1 : no such file or directory" about the earler partition. Strange, eh ? I've formated it using windows vista.

I've asked to delete and create a new partition. This is what gparted tells:

The following operation could not be applied to disk:

Create Primary Partition #1 (fat16, 980.53 MiB) on /dev/sdb

See the details for more information

And the details says : Unable to open /dev/sdb - unrecognized disk label.

And now ? What can I do ?

gparted (note the G for Gnome) *is* the gui that the normal user would use. It's what you get when you choose System --> Administration --> GNOME Partition Editor.

parted is the command line tool I would not expect a normal user to use.

Did you run gparted/parted with sudo?

Well, before using ubuntu, I was used o right-click -> format :) THIS is simple, imo.

I didn't run gksudo as root;

But now I've formated it using windows xp and now I have write access!!! STRANGE, isn't it ?

I'm going down on vista again, and I'm going to reformat it there. I'll try with my two players.

I think ubuntu isn't supporting the vista-formated fat16 partitions.....

Formated both again on vista and - guess what ? It worked on both pen drives. I really wonder why at first time there was that problem. Maybe I've selected "default allocation size" instead of what vista sugggests (16k) when formatting...

I'm having others problems - but since the original problem is solved, marking as solved.

ops - forgot the checkbox!

I think a better solution is to firstly backup your MP3 player then run a dosfsck as follows:

naaman@freddo:/media$ sudo dosfsck -a /dev/sdb1
dosfsck 2.11, 12 Mar 2005, FAT32, LFN
There are differences between boot sector and its backup.
Differences: (offset:original/backup)
  71:53/4e, 72:61/4f, 73:6e/20, 74:73/4e, 75:61/41, 76:20/4d, 77:65/45
  , 78:32/20, 79:35/20, 80:30/20
  Not automatically fixing this.
/MUSIC/System Of A Down/Hypnotize
  Contains a free cluster (294103). Assuming EOF.
/SYSTEM/DATA/PP5000.DAT
  Contains a free cluster (294103). Assuming EOF.
/SYSTEM/DATA/PP5000.DAT
  File size is 100268 bytes, cluster chain length is 98304 bytes.
  Truncating file to 98304 bytes.
Reclaimed 23641 unused clusters (96833536 bytes) in 17 chains.
Performing changes.
/dev/sdb1: 485 files, 419360/484616 clusters

Seen at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4354277 & http://errorsiget.meard.org/index.php?title=Fat32-FilesystemPanic