• Welcome to OS2World OLD-STATIC-BACKUP Forum.
 

News:

This is an old OS2World backup forum for reference only. IT IS READ ONLY!!!

If you need help with OS/2 - eComStation visit http://www.os2world.com/forum

Main Menu

LVM and USB flash disk

Started by cyber, 2009.04.07, 00:55:36

Previous topic - Next topic

cyber

Hello, is it still impossibile with LVM systems (eCS) to read USB flash memory that isn't partitioned on LVM fdisk/dfsee ?

Pete

Hi cyber.

The answer is Yes/No/Maybe.

What size flash drive are you talking about?

It seems smaller sizes - maybe 4Gb and less - do not need to be lvm volumes and those are treated as a Big Floppy.

Regards

Pete

cyber

#2
For example Transcend 2Gb, it see flash, give drive letter but not show content of drive. Also some incorect free/used size report. It is formated as FAT32, system is equiped with latest FAT32 drivers, Danis drivers isn't latest because latest doesn't work on this mobo/controler.
How to try to make it work without deleting all data on it ?  Some switches in config ?

Pete

Hi cyber

Quote from: cyber on 2009.04.07, 09:10:51
For example Transcend 2Gb, it see flash, give drive letter but not show content of drive. Also some incorect free/used size report. It is formated as FAT32, system is equiped with latest FAT32 drivers, Danis drivers isn't latest because latest doesn't work on this mobo/controler.
How to try to make it work without deleting all data on it ?  Some switches in config ?


I've not used any Transcend flash drives myself but, based on the fact that it attaches and reports incorrect data regarding Free/Used space I suspect it may be a "U3" type of drive. These are manufactured specifically for Windows systems and have a hidden partition. To use with other systems requires copying any data off the drive then you need to repartition the drive and reformat with your choice of operating system.

I could be wrong...

You could try fiddling with configuration switches; maybe USBcfg will be of help there  http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/system/usbcfgb701.zip


With regard to the Dani drivers not working with your system: It is *very important*
to send Dani a detailed error report. There is a lot of information about how to do this in the danis506.doc and the PROBLEM.TXT files that are included in the danis506 package.

Hope the above is of some help

Pete

cyber

There isn't more than one partition, I use this flash drive without problems on same hardware while was installed Warp4, and also checked on other computer with Linux; there is only one partition.
Anyone tried to strip LVM from eCS ?  Because it is important to me to can read any stick I plug in to without problems, like on old non-LVM Warp4 ?  Hell... even my stupid Home DVD player can read that stick. :)
othervise... I've seen using usbcfg that there are some boxes that I can check (and then reboot ?), I'll try at home later.
For Daniela's driver... i do not think that she is need to be extra busy chasing bugs to make newest driver work on ancient hardware too. Version of Dani's drivers shipped with eCS1.2 work perfect.

Saijin_Naib

U3 drives are only used by Sandisk. It is their technology/system. Other drives that have encryption usually have a small first partition that holds the encryption program with the remainder being Data but these are both simple partitions, not partitions designed to be mounted as CDFS like U3 drives.

CHS and other LVM data are probably wrong. Use DFSEE to make sure everything is right and then try to re-mount the drive.

MrJinx

I too suffer the same problem but the answer is probably not what you want to hear.
By default, Memory sticks are not partitioned media but rather a large floppy format device.
I can only use memory sticks up to 2 gig formated with FAT16 if I want both OS/2 and windows to share them.
Fat32 IFS support only works on partitioned media.  With that said, If fat 32 is a requirement, Then you will need to create a partition on the stick and define a fixed drive letter. You may likely need Dfsee to perform this as the memory stick will have to be blanked out to remove any boot sector/MBR code placed there by the manufacture. This is a requirement for larger size sticks or they will not be usable at all. Once a partition is created, They can be formatted as fat32 by windows or JFS/HPFS under OS/2.
I have several working 16gig SD cards using this technique. Including a bootable eCS installation. Do not forget to use eject when removing partitioned removable media or damage will likely occur. If a JFS formatted stick is mounted during OS/2 shutdown, It will come up as a dirty drive on the next reboot/insertion.

Blonde Guy

if it works on Warp 4 then it's easy to get it to work on eCS. Pity about our limitation about filesystems used on floppy disks. How hard would that be to fix? Just rewrite the floppy driver? Since eCS comes with source code for the floppy driver, isn't that possible for someone with more patience than me?
Expert Consulting for OS/2 and eComStation

MrJinx

I probably should not have used the word "device" All these sticks and memory cards via a usb reader are typical USB mass storage devices. The issue is fat32 in itself. M$ was only using it for HD support. Then, Drive sizes went over 80gig. USB memory sticks were exceeding the 2gig FAT limit. Over time, M$ added more to FAT32. Large Floppy Format being one of them.

It's a function of the IFS as best as I can tell. Even with the updates to FAT32.IFS last year, It still fails to recognize fat32 unless it resides in a physical partition. I would like to see it fixed as many of the low cost portable media players use fat32 for their storage fs but if you partition or format it as FAT16. It's game over. 

When this tread started, There was talk of this memory stick/card worked in Warp4. Maybe DANI's driver (PreLVM) supported Large floppy format.??

cyber

OK, I've tryed all options single and in combination under mass storage with USBcfg and rebooted dozen of times, none was help.
Next: to try updated USB drivers, it may be better. Where is possible to find newest USB drivers ?

warpcafe

Hi all,

I cannot give the solution to this, however... did anyone of you bring this problems/questions to the DFSee forum? Even if it might not exactly relate to DFSee, the guys over there are pretty experienced and perhaps can give at least some insight into what driver/IFS works on top of another to understand how a USB MSD is "treated" by OS/2. Perhaps also Daniela has information on this from the Dani's readmes?

Cheers,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

Andi

Preface - I use a 4GB SanDisk with FAT32 on eCS2.0rcxx and Win without Problems. There is a win utility to delete the CD-ROM emulation partiton on this stick but seem to remember it worked before on eCS too. The 1GB SanDisk I use is FAT formated and works well too.

The Large Floppy stuff is described in the readme of the latest lvm update AFAIK (lmv14105?). You can download it from ecomstation.com. There is even a newer lvm... from the xr_c006 fixpack which was not public released but you can find it on some servers and extract the lvm, os2dasd... stuff. There was a discussion on http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.os2.setup.storage/browse_thread/thread/d143326397e14457# about a week ago if you want this newer one.

AFAIR Large Floppy (non partitioned) is only possible till 2GB (FAT restriction). But I suggest you to read the included information in the lvm package for details.

jep

Hello,

The annoying part is that you mave to "mark" the drive as a volume (haven't got a better word for it) before LVM and fat32.ifs will show you the folders/files on it.

A word of precaution, ensure that you're not trying it on a stick full of important files.

Once I understood what and how to do it, it worked quite well on my 4Gb SanDisk and no files or folders where lost, but it would be nice if LVM could handle it transparently without that procedure in the first place.

//Jan-Erik

Saijin_Naib

I hear you Jep. I used to have tons of trouble with some of my flash-based Mp3 players until I realized I had to manually mark them as a volume with an assigned letter. After that, I no longer got the drive size of 31/32mb that it showed for me for improperly mounted media.

Criguada

Quote from: MrJinx on 2009.04.08, 06:39:18
It's a function of the IFS as best as I can tell. Even with the updates to FAT32.IFS last year, It still fails to recognize fat32 unless it resides in a physical partition. I would like to see it fixed as many of the low cost portable media players use fat32 for their storage fs but if you partition or format it as FAT16. It's game over. 

I don't see the problem. I have a 2Gb Creative Zen player which I could not see from eCS (it was large-floppy format). I repartitioned it with LVM, formatted it FAT32 under Windows, and now I can see it from both eCS and Windows, and it works perfectly as a portable media player.
Are you saying that your portable media players don't work anymore if you partition them?

Bye
Cris