Help, Thumb Drive won't mount

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I'm having issues trying to open a thumb drive that I have, and I get this Message:


Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 1: helper failed with:
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdc1,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so

Is this a sign that the drive has finally died, or is it a sign of a bodged MBR from improperly removing the drive?

If it is the latter, how do I repair it? --I have tried reformatting it, and I still get this message.

I'm using Debian Squeeze.


Also, after further research, here's my/etc/fstab:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>

proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
#Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=6eb5bfac-5fc6-48c3-9594-c60960ff9196 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
#Entry for /dev/sda1 :
UUID=5C38BE0D38BDE664 /media/sda1 ntfs-3g defaults,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0
#Entry for /dev/sda6 :
UUID=b19fc1ee-48ac-42f0-9523-cf615a249d83 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/sdc1 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0



How do I edit the /dev/sdc1 line to recognise the USB Drive?

You don't, assuming you have two CD/DVD drives on your machine and they were previously recognised as sdc0 and sdc1.

What errors do syslog or dmesg have relating to the insertion of the thumb drive?

Here's the pertinent stuff from dmsg:

[ 1591.505089] usb 2-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
[ 1591.647958] usb 2-4: New USB device found, idVendor=154b, idProduct=0027
[ 1591.647967] usb 2-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 1591.647974] usb 2-4: Product: Geek Squad
[ 1591.647978] usb 2-4: Manufacturer:
[ 1591.647982] usb 2-4: SerialNumber: 6E951A1804E4
[ 1591.648231] usb 2-4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 1591.649072] scsi6 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[ 1591.649400] usb-storage: device found at 3
[ 1591.649404] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[ 1596.648444] usb-storage: device scan complete
[ 1596.650958] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access Geek Squad PMAP PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
[ 1596.654526] sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
[ 1596.865124] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] 15663104 512-byte logical blocks: (8.01 GB/7.46 GiB)
[ 1596.866625] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
[ 1596.866632] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
[ 1596.866637] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 1596.870634] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 1596.870645] sdc: sdc1
[ 1596.874615] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 1596.874627] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 1597.802558] UDF-fs: No anchor found
[ 1597.802564] UDF-fs: Rescanning with blocksize 2048
[ 1597.824114] UDF-fs: No anchor found
[ 1597.824120] UDF-fs: No partition found (1)
[ 1597.864231] ISOFS: Unable to identify CD-ROM format.
[ 1626.874872] UDF-fs: No anchor found
[ 1626.874877] UDF-fs: Rescanning with blocksize 2048
[ 1626.892397] UDF-fs: No anchor found
[ 1626.892404] UDF-fs: No partition found (1)
[ 1626.933264] ISOFS: Unable to identify CD-ROM format.


The flash drive is a 'Geek Squad' from the BestBuy chain.

Well its failing because sdc1 is expected to be an ISO device and clearly, a thumb drive isn't.
What puzzles me is why it would want to treat that device as sdc1.

Do you actually have two CD/DVD drives present and are they still functioning Ok?

No, it's a notebook computer. --From what I've been able to google, this is a bug inherant to Debian Squeeze.

Ah, right. Try one of these -

If you have one CD/DVD device edit fstab to:
# /dev/sdc1 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
This just straightens up the entry for the first drive and removes the redundant entry for a non-existent drive.

If you have none then edit it to:
# /dev/sdc1 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
# /dev/scd0 /media/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
This just removes the redundant entries for both non-existent drives.

A thumb drive should be detected via hotplug and mounted automatically; it shouldn't an require entry in fstab.

If it still fails, the relevant output from dmesg would be useful again.

Actually, your suggestion was wrong, Here's what I did:

/dev/sdc1 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0,
gets edited to :
/dev/sdc1 /media/usb0 auto rw, user,noauto 0 0

Now it works fine.(In fact, this is post is being written with Xubuntu 12.04 LTS that I stuck on the above mentioned Thumb drive )

The reason for the issue is that when I installed Debian Squeeze from the thumb drive, it had been installed from an .ISO file with unetbootin. Instead of recognising the USB Thumb Drive as such, it defaulted to recognising the install media as optical media instead. --I think that this is an idiosycracy specific to Debian Squeeze.

As far as the current version of Xubuntu is concerned, I really don't have much data on it as of yet, though it is nice to see that the 3.2.0 kernel supports my Atheros wireless chipset natively.

Actually it was entirely correct - but of course I'm not seated at your machine.
Pleased it's now working, anyway.