external usb harddisk hamlet

[falesca]

I bought an external case for 3.5'' hd. It's an hamlet ubb/firewire hex3ub.
I put inside the case a Maxtor PO 200Gb Ide.
When I connect the usb wire I get this error message

Apr 23 15:48:57 patagonia usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 21
Apr 23 15:48:58 patagonia scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Apr 23 15:48:58 patagonia usb-storage: device found at 21
Apr 23 15:48:58 patagonia usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia Vendor: Maxtor S Model: ABRE Rev: BAH4
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 04
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia sda: Unit Not Ready, sense:
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia : Current: sense key: Aborted Command
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia Additional sense: No additional sense information
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia sda : very big device. try to use READ CAPACITY(16).
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia sda : READ CAPACITY(16) failed.
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia sda : status=0, message=00, host=5, driver=00
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia sda : use 0xffffffff as device size
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia SCSI device sda: 4294967296 512-byte hdwr sectors (2199023 MB)
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia sda: assuming drive cache: write through
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia sda: Unit Not Ready, sense:
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia : Current: sense key: Aborted Command
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia Additional sense: No additional sense information
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia sda : very big device. try to use READ CAPACITY(16).
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia sda : READ CAPACITY(16) failed.
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia sda : status=0, message=00, host=5, driver=00
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia sda : use 0xffffffff as device size
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia SCSI device sda: 4294967296 512-byte hdwr sectors (2199023 MB)
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia sda: assuming drive cache: write through
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia sda:<6>SCSI error : <4 0 0 0> return code = 0x8000002
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia sda: Current: sense key: Aborted Command
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia Additional sense: No additional sense information
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia SCSI error : <4 0 0 0> return code = 0x8000002
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia sda: Current: sense key: Aborted Command
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia Additional sense: No additional sense information
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia unable to read partition table
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia Attached scsi disk sda at scsi4, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Apr 23 15:49:03 patagonia Attached scsi generic sg0 at scsi4, channel 0, id 0, lun 0, type 0

Apr 24 18:54:58 patagonia usb 1-2: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 25
Apr 24 18:54:59 patagonia usb 1-2: scsi_eh_5 timed out on ep0in
Apr 24 18:54:59 patagonia usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
Apr 24 18:55:04 patagonia usb 1-2: scsi_eh_5 timed out on ep0in
Apr 24 18:55:04 patagonia usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
Apr 24 18:55:04 patagonia usb 1-2: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 25
Apr 24 18:55:05 patagonia usb 1-2: scsi_eh_5 timed out on ep0in
Apr 24 18:55:05 patagonia usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
Apr 24 18:55:10 patagonia usb 1-2: scsi_eh_5 timed out on ep0in
Apr 24 18:55:10 patagonia usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
Apr 24 18:55:10 patagonia scsi: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery: host 5 channel 0 id 0 lun 0
Apr 24 18:55:10 patagonia usb 1-2: USB disconnect, address 25
Apr 24 18:55:10 patagonia scsi5 (0:0): rejecting I/O to offline device
Apr 24 18:55:10 patagonia scsi5 (0:0): rejecting I/O to offline device
Apr 24 18:55:10 patagonia usb-storage: device scan complete
Apr 24 18:55:10 patagonia usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 26
Apr 24 18:55:11 patagonia usb 1-2: khubd timed out on ep0in
Apr 24 18:55:12 patagonia usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
Apr 24 18:55:17 patagonia usb 1-2: khubd timed out on ep0in
Apr 24 18:55:17 patagonia usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
Apr 24 18:55:17 patagonia usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 27
Apr 24 18:55:18 patagonia usb 1-2: khubd timed out on ep0in
Apr 24 18:55:18 patagonia usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
Apr 24 18:55:23 patagonia usb 1-2: khubd timed out on ep0in
Apr 24 18:55:23 patagonia usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110
Apr 24 19:06:41 patagonia scsi: unknown opcode 0x01


I'm running a 2.6.11 gentoo kernel.

uname -r
2.6.11-gentoo-r5-mat

My machine runs gentoo for AMD64 Athlon
but I get a similar error on my other computer, and amd266 with debian sid and 2.4.21 kernel.org recompiled kernel

I didn't put much attention on the first part of the error messages releted to scsi errors, as I noticed that the hd size has been detected and at the moment there is not partition table yet on the disk.
Instead I tried to understand why I get an USB error.

All usb and scsi modules are compiled inside the kernel. That is usb-storage, sg, ohci-hcd, ehci-hcd
I ran
cdrecord -scanbus , but no device was detected

Cdrecord-Clone 2.01.01a01 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2004 Jörg Schilling
on-the-fly encryption (version 1.0-rc1) built-in, (C) 2004,2005 Maximilian Decker

NOTE: this version of cdrecord is an inofficial (modified) release of cdrecord
and thus may have bugs that are not present in the original version.
Please send bug reports and support requests to <burbon04 at gmx.de>.
For more information please see http://burbon04.gmxhome.de/linux/CDREncryption.html.
The original author should not be bothered with problems of this version.

cdrecord: Warning: Running on Linux-2.6.11-gentoo-r5-mat
cdrecord: There are unsettled issues with Linux-2.5 and newer.
cdrecord: If you have unexpected problems, please try Linux-2.4 or Solaris.
Linux sg driver version: 3.5.32
Using libscg version 'schily-0.8'.
scsibus8:
8,0,0 800) *
8,1,0 801) *
8,2,0 802) *
8,3,0 803) *
8,4,0 804) *
8,5,0 805) *
8,6,0 806) *
8,7,0 807) *
cdrecord: No target found.

This is the result of lsusb
lsusb
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 046d:c219 Logitech, Inc.
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
(I have a logitech joypad that is detected correctly)

I already tried to do
echo N > /sys/module/usbcore/parameters/old_scheme_first
The only difference is that I get an error for a 8 bit read:

Apr 23 15:50:19 patagonia usb 1-2: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 21
Apr 23 15:50:24 patagonia usb 1-2: scsi_eh_4 timed out on ep0in
Apr 23 15:50:24 patagonia usb 1-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110

I also recompiled a version of the kernel with ehci compiled as a module so to exclude that module and I get the same error (only with ohci_hcd instead), so it's not a problem of ehci (as it happened once to me for a usb pen)

To understand the problem I had a quick (very newby) look on the kernel sources and I found that the error -110 correspond to Timeout error,
I only see that the problem arises at the beginning of the usb dialog when the computer tries to fetch the device descriptor.
I thought about changing the timeout time for my machine to a longer one but I read the timeout is 1 sec at the first attempt and 5 secs to the following... it seems quite long to me.

This is the timeout from hub.c
(i ? HZ * USB_CTRL_GET_TIMEOUT : HZ)
measured in jiffies
where
HZ = 100 should be the number of jiffies/sec
USB_CTRL_GET_TIMEOUT = 5
'i' is the attempt, so it's shorter for i=0 and longer for successive attempts.

I see that the hamlet hardware is not compatible with linux, but I expected the usb-storage system being a de facto standard by now.
Does anybody have any suggestion?

thank you,

falesca

[qypea]

Out of curiosity, have you tried with a different OS yet? If it won't work with an OS other than linux either, then it may be something wrong with the hardware.
If it works smoothly under the other OS, then I'd look into linux boot disks(such as knoppix) to verify that it will work with some linux systems.
Hopefully this helps,
Q
_________________
Adopt an unanswered post initiative.

[falesca]

Unfortunately under windows it works. I say unfortunately because it seems a linux problem.
I didn't try many different distributions actually. I'll make an attempt in that sense.

I posted two notes at the linux-usb-users mailing list:
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=7119009&forum_id=5395
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=7115546&forum_id=5395

Alan Stern replied that it could be a hardware problem on the side of the pc.
I will buy an external usb card to check on that too.
But it could also be a problem of the description exchange phase in the usb-storage drive. I\ll do some test.

thank you
falesca

[falesca]

A problem with the Oxford Semiconductor chipset (on my hamlet external enclosure) is pointed out here
http://www.hollants.com/external_usb_controller_chips.html