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I'm having a problem with a server that I just installed kernel 2.6.18-371.el5 on. It's an old kernel for Red Hat 5, I know, but due to certain "restrictions" I am forced into using that for the time being. It should also be noted that this distro that I installed was a kickstart with various security software pre-installed.

Regardless, I have a local repo on an external USB HDD and for the life of me I can't seem to get the system to load the drivers for the drive. Due to other network restrictions I'm not able to post log messages from it either, or connect the server to a public line. So I'll do my best to hand jam important info. I'm fairly Linux competent, but new to the loading of drivers into the kernel and such. So if some of my explanation seems weird, I'm sorry.

What I've done so far:

-"ls /dev" shows: "usbdev1.5_ep00, ...01, ...81" ...when I plug the drive in. But no "sd*" for the drive at all.

-"blkid" only shows me my OS partitions and the CDROM mount. No USB mounts at all

-"fdisk -l" shows my three physical drives "sda, sdb and sdc", which correspond to my three internal SAS drives. They are working fine.

-"dmesg" only displays: "usb 1-4.1:1.0: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5" "usb 1-4.1:1.0: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice" ...and that's it. No discovery of any more device info.

-"lsmod" shows "ehci_hcd", "uhci_hcd" and "ohci_hcd" all loaded and nothing else.

-"lsusb" shows Bus 001 Device 004 and Device 003 : Cypress Semiconductor Corp USB 2 TetraHub, Bus 002 Dev 004 Raritan Computer, and then 4 other blank bus devices...7 in total. (The Raritan is the Ethernet Attached KVM using the USB Keyboard and mouse)

-"yum list libusb" shows that libusb.x86_64 is installed

So far I've searched for a few hours for solutions on this issue. I've tried modprobing usb_storage and ehci_hcd. I've tried rebooting with the drive plugged in. I've looked in the BIOS and it appears that the drive is being seen in there. I've reinstalled the kernel rpm in hopes that something would be corrected.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can get the USB working for block devices? I'd be very grateful for any help to do so.

It should also be noted that the kickstart grub config came with a nousb line that I deleted in order to use a USB keyboard and mouse. Both work without issue now and are discovered in the above commands.

chicks
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cclater
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    If `usbutils` is installed then `lsusb` could show something useful? – shearn89 Feb 02 '15 at 13:52
  • Thank you, I forgot to add that and edited the original question to include those results. – cclater Feb 02 '15 at 14:02
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    You should have at least the `usb_storage` module. – wurtel Feb 02 '15 at 15:20
  • I thought so too, so I do an "lsmod" and there is no "usb_storage" loaded that I can find. So I "modprobe usb_storage", it returns no errors, and then "lsmod" again and still nothing. Is there somewhere it could be blocked? I can't find it in any modprobe conf blacklist. – cclater Feb 02 '15 at 17:37
  • Could you please provide the full output of `lsubs -v`? – Thomas Berger Mar 03 '15 at 12:32
  • I can't, the system is not allowed to connect to the network for me to copy and paste. I'm actually working with the tier 3 support of the organization that created the kickstarter image of the distro to get them to figure out what they did to disable USB block devices. I'll post the answer as soon as the get back to me. – cclater Mar 03 '15 at 18:03
  • Just to verify you have unplugged the USB run `ls -a /dev > currentdevs.txt` then plugged it in then run `ls -a /dev > newerdevs.txt` and then run a `diff currentdevs.txt newerdevs.txt` to verify that the system is not noticing anything being plugged in right? – Matt Jul 14 '15 at 17:35
  • Any chance the drive is just corrupted? I've had that happen in the past. Can you mount it on other system(s) at all? – Mary Aug 05 '15 at 21:35
  • Would also suggest to check the drive with another machine. Also you could copy your repo to another usb disk and/or thumb drive and try to mount those. Prefer older disks/drives as they might be more compatible with your old kernel. Plus make sure the machine understands the filesystem you use on the disk but that is of course only relevant after your machine notices the disk being plugged in. – cstoll Sep 09 '19 at 12:04

2 Answers2

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Have you checked /etc/modprobe.conf to see if usb-storage has been "fake installed"?

Check with grep usb-storage /etc/modprobe.conf and see if it shows either something like install usb-storage /bin/true or blacklist usb-storage; if it does, comment those out and then try again.

You may also want to make sure the driver is even there by looking in /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/usb/storage/.

Ackack
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Try this:

insmod /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/usb/storage/usb-storage.ko

then remove and re-plug the drive and check dmesg.

Aaron Tate
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