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FAT32 on USB Mass Storage device

Started by djcaetano, 2007.07.06, 02:39:00

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djcaetano

  Hello, guys,

  Yesterday I bought a Kingston DataTraveller 1GB (USB 2.0 Mass Storage Device) and I was really glad when I plugget it on my OS/2 box and OS/2 gently detected it.
   After some experience and awe, I noticed DataTraveller came formatted in FAT16: ie: small filenames and EA_DATA.SF and alike files.
   I have FAT32 drivers installed on OS/2 (and several FAT32 partitions on my HD) so I decided to format the DataTraveller using FAT32. After that, OS/2 still recognizes it, but when I try to read it (dir, for example) OS/2 tells me it's unable to access it. In the properties notebook, the filesystem is reported to "unknown".
  I reformated it as FAT16 and everything was fine again. I tried a couple of options (even formatting it using Partition Magic and other tools), but no way: OS/2 refuses to access the DataTraveller using FAT32.

   I read somewhere that CWUSB driver would allow me to read this device, but all external USB ports on my machine are EHCI, which are not supported by CWUSB drivers (and using only MSD driver from the package with base IBM USB drivers resulted in the same problem as before).

  Am I doing anything wrong? Any clues?
  Will I be forever doomed in the world of incompatible long filenames between OS/2 and Windows machines? :P

  My kindest regards and thanks in advance!

  Daniel Caetano

DavidG

What version of OS/2?

What version of the FAT32 drivers are you using?

What version of the USB drivers?

Run

bldlevel <drive>:\os2\boot\usbmsd.sys

to inform us what version of the driver you are using.

Replace <drive> with your drive letter.


djcaetano

Quote from: David Graser on 2007.07.06, 03:48:08
What version of OS/2?

  MCP2 (4.52)

Quote from: David Graser on 2007.07.06, 03:48:08
What version of the FAT32 drivers are you using?

  Packaged with WarpIn, 0.9.11.

Quote from: David Graser on 2007.07.06, 03:48:08
What version of the USB drivers?
Run
bldlevel <drive>:\os2\boot\usbmsd.sys

  usbmsd.add version 10.123, the latest I could find.

  This problem was fixed on a newer version?

DavidG

Your usbmsd.add is a pretty old version.  However, this is probably the best you can do without upgrading to eCS.

There is one thing you might try.  I do this to all my usb devices before using them with eComStation.

Delete the partition on the usb device using fdisk.   Then create a new one using OS/2's fdisk.  I use LVM instead of fdisk since I use eCS.  Format Fat32 and then see if it is recognized.  DO NOT CREATE THE NEW PARTITION USING WINDOWS DISK TOOLS.


djcaetano

Quote from: David Graser on 2007.07.06, 06:00:59
Your usbmsd.add is a pretty old version.  However, this is probably the best you can do without upgrading to eCS.

  I'm thinking on upgrading to eCS on my work, where I use an Core2Duo computer, but more on that later. :)

Quote from: David Graser on 2007.07.06, 06:00:59
There is one thing you might try.  I do this to all my usb devices before using them with eComStation.
Delete the partition on the usb device using fdisk.   Then create a new one using OS/2's fdisk.  I use LVM instead of fdisk since I use eCS.  Format Fat32 and then see if it is recognized.  DO NOT CREATE THE NEW PARTITION USING WINDOWS DISK TOOLS.

   Ah! That worked! The problem was LVM was not being able to cope with the partition that came defined on the DataTraveller.

   Now, about eCS... A friend of mine lent me eCS2.0 RC1 CD so I could test on the new machine I have at work (since he has no dual-core CPU and he would like to know the results and I want to know if my boss will kill me if I request to buy a new OS). It has been several days fighting with eCS, removing the unsupported GForce7300GS (sloppy result with SNAP drivers) and keeping the onboard Intel GM950 and then I was able to install and run it. When I used the ACPI Wizzard it messed my Config.Sys but I was able to correct it so the system now boots ok using SMP.
   Well, almost ok. Every now and then the system hangs with no explanation and now I was able to make the DataTraveller work smoothly using FAT32 on my OS/2 box, I have just discovered FAT32 traps the SMP kernel when I connect the DataTraveller. It seems some kind of incompatibility, because the problem is gone when I remove the "/SMP"  from ACPI.PSD. The version of FAT32 and ACPI are the versions that came with eCS2.0RC1. Only for information, MB is an ASUS P5GZ-MX, using intel chipset (945GZ / ICH7 ).

   I believe it's almost running and probably will be worth buying, but maybe I'll wait until these random lockups (with SMP) and problems with FAT32/USB FC/SMP are gone. The fact is eCS1.x bring too little for such a high price. eCS 2.0 clearly has improved in this matter.

kim

Are the random hangs when the system is up and running or is also during the boot?

djcaetano

#7
Only hangs when it is up and running (never on boot time). Some examples:

   - When a program is closed (like Lotus SmartSuite 1.7.3);
   - When I shutdown/restart the system (the system hangs just before reboot);
   ...

   Usually the system slowdown (one of the CPUs goes 99.9% without any
reason) before these hangs, but sometimes it seems it can recover itself.
I am detecting SMP using PIC. I will try to configure APIC this afternoon.

(Edit1: in fact, even with SMP disabled (but using SMP kernel) I am having
some weird memory behaviour in this machine. This happened just now:

[C:\]dir acpi*.* /s |more
SYS0008: There is not enough memory available to process this command.
All available memory is in use.

But Sentinel Memory Watcher shows me 2 MB of Swap, 306MB used, 1733MB
free memory). It just doesn' t make sense... :/   )

DavidG

I am using the SMP ACPI kernel with my uniprocessor.  For some reason, when the ACPI driver is enabled using just the W4 or Unikrnl with ACPI support, my CPU and IRQ usuage is around 40% when my computer is idle.  I switched to the SMP kernel and my problem went away.  On bootup, the SMP os2krnl recongizes just my one processor.

The Unikrnl and SMP os2krnl for ACPI support were recently (withing the last few weeks) uploaded to the ecs beta zone.

So if one does not RC1 or a recent subscription for eCS, they do not have these two recently modified kernels.

On my Toshiba Satellite notebook M65 S9092, eCS installed easily and works great.

In fact, RC1 is so stable on my notebook that I am in the process of making it my maintenance partition.  When the final release comes out, I will install it on my old 1.2 MR maintenance partition.

djcaetano

Quote from: djcaetano on 2007.07.06, 17:38:44
  I have just discovered FAT32 traps the SMP kernel when I connect the DataTraveller. It seems some kind of incompatibility, because the problem is gone when I remove the "/SMP"  from ACPI.PSD.

  Well, one step forward to buying eCS 2.0: I solved the USB DataTraveller problem using /SMP, but this was not a simple step. First I tried to enable /APIC. Oddly enough, the system was slowing down when loading DANIS506, OS2DASD and then hanging on loading OS2LVM. Since ACPI docs are saying DANIS506.ADD SATA is ready for high IRQs, I tried every single switch of ACPI.PSD. None worked.
  Reading on some eCS forums I discovered that the information on the ACPI docs is not really right. DANIS506 (even the newer one) do have problems when running SATA harddisks on high IRQs. So, as suggested in the forum, I used PCI.EXE to discover device ID, then SCANPCI to discover the PIC and APIC IRQs for the device and changed the ACPI.CFG to REMAP the high IRQ to the low IRQ and ... voilĂ : working SMP with APIC and USB DataTraveller running ok using FAT32.

    Cool, but made me feel ACPI (or DANIS506) need some more work before eCS 2.0 becomes GA.

wesco

i'd like to see your revised acpi.cfg file. please post!

djcaetano

Quote from: wesco on 2007.07.07, 00:21:39
i'd like to see your revised acpi.cfg file. please post!

  The only line that is not a comment is:

REMAP 23 TO 11

   On the other hand, I forgot to mention that I added the /CD parameter on
ACPI.PSD config.sys line! :)

  Here is the forum where I first read about this problem:

http://forum.ecomstation.ru/viewtopic.php?p=540&sid=162315cda1391d89980fe2f38eb7f5eb

HansH

I reformatted some USB-Sticks to FAT32 with DFSee. Then I choosed Edit- Force operation mode- Select Fat12,16 or 32 Mode xxx, Want to type a specific mode (type) Yes, LVM-Manager Information.
Then write names and Device Letter and confirm. You must finish DFSee and eject the stick and remove it.
Then connect the stick again and it may work.
HansH