Why does Debian not recognize my USB3 disk drive?

[Rick Thomas]

I recently added a USB3 PCI card to my Dell Poweredge 1430 server box.

I've tried plugging in various USB3 and USB2 devices (FLASH sticks, a WD
MyBook 3TB external drive, etc) but they are not recognized by Debian as
disks.

When I plug these devices into a USB2 card also on the same server, they
are recognized, but I'm limited to USB2 data speeds on the USB3 devices.

Am I missing a driver for the USB3 card?
Are some USB3 chipsets not supported?
Am I missing something important?

Thanks for any help you can provide!
Rick

With the disk plugged into the USB2 card, I get the following

> rbthomas@monk:~$ lsusb
> Bus 001 Device 004: ID 2222:0013 MacAlly
> Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0557:8021 ATEN International Co., Ltd CS1764A
> [CubiQ DVI KVMP Switch]
> Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0409:005a NEC Corp. HighSpeed Hub
> Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
> Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
> Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
> Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
> Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
> Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
> Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
> Bus 008 Device 002: ID 1058:1230 Western Digital Technologies, Inc. My
> Book (WDBFJK0030HBK)
> Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
> Bus 010 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
> Bus 009 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
> rbthomas@monk:~$ lspci | grep -i usb
> 00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset
> UHCI USB Controller #1 (rev 09)
> 00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset
> UHCI USB Controller #2 (rev 09)
> 00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset
> UHCI USB Controller #3 (rev 09)
> 00:1d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset
> UHCI USB Controller #4 (rev 09)
> 00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset
> EHCI USB2 Controller (rev 09)
> 07:05.0 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xx/62xx UHCI USB
> 1.1 Controller (rev 62)
> 07:05.1 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xx/62xx UHCI USB
> 1.1 Controller (rev 62)
> 07:05.2 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 65)
> 08:00.0 USB controller: Renesas Technology Corp. uPD720201 USB 3.0
> Host Controller (rev 03)
But if I plug the same disk into the USB3 card, I get the following
> rbthomas@monk:~$ lsusb
> Bus 001 Device 004: ID 2222:0013 MacAlly
> Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0557:8021 ATEN International Co., Ltd CS1764A
> [CubiQ DVI KVMP Switch]
> Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0409:005a NEC Corp. HighSpeed Hub
> Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
> Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
> Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
> Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
> Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
> Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
> Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
> Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
> Bus 010 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
> Bus 009 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
> rbthomas@monk:~$ lspci | grep -i usb
> 00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset
> UHCI USB Controller #1 (rev 09)
> 00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset
> UHCI USB Controller #2 (rev 09)
> 00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset
> UHCI USB Controller #3 (rev 09)
> 00:1d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset
> UHCI USB Controller #4 (rev 09)
> 00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset
> EHCI USB2 Controller (rev 09)
> 07:05.0 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xx/62xx UHCI USB
> 1.1 Controller (rev 62)
> 07:05.1 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xx/62xx UHCI USB
> 1.1 Controller (rev 62)
> 07:05.2 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 65)
> 08:00.0 USB controller: Renesas Technology Corp. uPD720201 USB 3.0
> Host Controller (rev 03)

[rlha...@oplink.net]

On Sun, August 30, 2015 10:21 pm, Rick Thomas wrote:
> I recently added a USB3 PCI card to my Dell Poweredge 1430 server box.

...

> Am I missing a driver for the USB3 card?
> Are some USB3 chipsets not supported?
> Am I missing something important?

Have you installed "gnome-disk-utility"?

RLH

[Rick Thomas]

That package is installed, though it was installed automatically, not manually.

Why do you ask?
Rick

[CaT]

On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 08:21:26PM -0700, Rick Thomas wrote:
> Am I missing a driver for the USB3 card?
> Are some USB3 chipsets not supported?
> Am I missing something important?

Does 'dmesg' show that the drive is seen and a /dev device is allocated
to it when you plug it into the USB3 card?

> >rbthomas@monk:~$ lspci | grep -i usb

try 'lspci -v | less' and find your card in there. See if there's a
driver allocated to it.

--
"A search of his car uncovered pornography, a homemade sex aid, women's
stockings and a Jack Russell terrier."
- http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/wacky/indeed/story-e6frev20-1111118083480

[rlha...@oplink.net]

On Sun, August 30, 2015 11:08 pm, Rick Thomas wrote:
> On Aug 30, 2015, at 8:35 PM, rlha...@oplink.net wrote:
>> Have you installed "gnome-disk-utility"?

> Why do you ask?

When working with external drives, I constantly use gnome-disk-utility to
mount and unmount, and generally to mount partitions of external drives
(including USB sticks) to see what I have stored there.

To me it is a basic tool. But it was not installed by default in my
Debian Jessie installation; I had to install it.

RLH

[Rick Thomas]

On Aug 30, 2015, at 9:12 PM, CaT <c...@zip.com.au> wrote:

> On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 08:21:26PM -0700, Rick Thomas wrote:
>> Am I missing a driver for the USB3 card?
>> Are some USB3 chipsets not supported?
>> Am I missing something important?
>
> Does 'dmesg' show that the drive is seen and a /dev device is allocated
> to it when you plug it into the USB3 card?

There is no /dev allocated to the disk drive when plugged into the USB3 board.

Typing “dmesg | less” and looking for ‘usb’ shows the following

> [ 1.022294] xhci_hcd 0000:08:00.0: hcc params 0x014051c7 hci version 0x100 quirks 0x00000010
> [ 1.023891] usb usb2: New USB device found, idVendor=1d6b, idProduct=0002
> [ 1.023895] usb usb2: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=1
> [ 1.023898] usb usb2: Product: xHCI Host Controller
> [ 1.023900] usb usb2: Manufacturer: Linux 4.1.0-1-amd64 xhci-hcd
> [ 1.023903] usb usb2: SerialNumber: 0000:08:00.0
> [ 1.024123] hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
> [ 1.024141] hub 2-0:1.0: 4 ports detected
> [ 1.024370] xhci_hcd 0000:08:00.0: xHCI Host Controller
> [ 1.024376] xhci_hcd 0000:08:00.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 7
> [ 1.025847] usb usb7: New USB device found, idVendor=1d6b, idProduct=0003
> [ 1.025850] usb usb7: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=1
> [ 1.025853] usb usb7: Product: xHCI Host Controller
> [ 1.025855] usb usb7: Manufacturer: Linux 4.1.0-1-amd64 xhci-hcd
> [ 1.025858] usb usb7: SerialNumber: 0000:08:00.0
> [ 1.026035] hub 7-0:1.0: USB hub found
> [ 1.026053] hub 7-0:1.0: 4 ports detected

This appears to be happening during a reboot. There was no disk plugged into it at the time.

I’ll plug in a disk and test it next chance I get, if you think it will help.

>
>>> rbthomas@monk:~$ lspci | grep -i usb
>
> try 'lspci -v | less' and find your card in there. See if there's a
> driver allocated to it.

I get the following

> 08:00.0 USB controller: Renesas Technology Corp. uPD720201 USB 3.0 Host Controller (rev 03) (prog-if 30 [XHCI])
> Subsystem: Renesas Technology Corp. uPD720201 USB 3.0 Host Controller
> Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 24
> Memory at fd9fe000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
> Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 3
> Capabilities: [70] MSI: Enable- Count=1/8 Maskable- 64bit+
> Capabilities: [90] MSI-X: Enable+ Count=8 Masked-
> Capabilities: [a0] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
> Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd

It appears to have a the xhci_hcd driver. Does that help?

Rick

[Rick Thomas]

Thanks for the pointer. I used to use "palimpsest" for this kind of
thing when I wanted a GUI disk manager, but I went away in Jessie. This
may be a suitable substitute.

Unfortunately, it doesn't see the disk either when plugged into the USB3
card.
Rick

[Rick Thomas]

On 08/30/15 21:34, Rick Thomas wrote:
> I’ll plug in a disk and test it next chance I get, if you think it will help.

Plugging the disk in after reboot shows nothing happening with the USB3
card.

Plugging it into the USB2 card gets the expected
> [ 372.956020] usb 8-3: new high-speed USB device number 2 using ehci-pci
> [ 373.097430] usb 8-3: New USB device found, idVendor=05dc,
> idProduct=a838
> [ 373.097434] usb 8-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2,
> SerialNumber=3
> [ 373.097437] usb 8-3: Product: USB Flash Drive
> [ 373.097439] usb 8-3: Manufacturer: Lexar
> [ 373.097442] usb 8-3: SerialNumber: AALBOCEKDL6LQK8A
> [ 373.129075] usb-storage 8-3:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
> [ 373.129229] scsi host5: usb-storage 8-3:1.0
> [ 373.129364] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
> [ 373.143513] usbcore: registered new interface driver uas
> [ 374.434275] scsi 5:0:0:0: Direct-Access Lexar USB Flash
> Drive 1100 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
> [ 374.434685] sd 5:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0
> [ 374.436135] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdc] 62517248 512-byte logical blocks:
> (32.0 GB/29.8 GiB)
> [ 374.436998] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
> [ 374.437002] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
> [ 374.437878] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdc] Write cache: enabled, read cache:
> enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
> [ 374.453902] sdc: sdc1 sdc2
> [ 374.458001] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk

[CaT]

On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 09:34:41PM -0700, Rick Thomas wrote:
> On Aug 30, 2015, at 9:12 PM, CaT <c...@zip.com.au> wrote:
>
> > On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 08:21:26PM -0700, Rick Thomas wrote:
> >> Am I missing a driver for the USB3 card?
> >> Are some USB3 chipsets not supported?
> >> Am I missing something important?
> >
> > Does 'dmesg' show that the drive is seen and a /dev device is allocated
> > to it when you plug it into the USB3 card?
>
> There is no /dev allocated to the disk drive when plugged into the USB3 board.

Three possibilities IMO:

* cable too dodgy for USB3 but not dodgy enough for USB2 to fail :)
* card is dodgy (do you know that it actually does work?)
* drivers are dodgy (can happen - is there a newer kernel you can try?)

[Glenn English]

On Aug 30, 2015, at 11:17 PM, CaT <c...@zip.com.au> wrote:

> On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 09:34:41PM -0700, Rick Thomas wrote:
>> On Aug 30, 2015, at 9:12 PM, CaT <c...@zip.com.au> wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 08:21:26PM -0700, Rick Thomas wrote:
>>>> Am I missing a driver for the USB3 card?
>>>> Are some USB3 chipsets not supported?
>>>> Am I missing something important?
>>>
>>> Does 'dmesg' show that the drive is seen and a /dev device is allocated
>>> to it when you plug it into the USB3 card?
>>
>> There is no /dev allocated to the disk drive when plugged into the USB3 board.
>
> Three possibilities IMO:
>
> * cable too dodgy for USB3 but not dodgy enough for USB2 to fail :)
> * card is dodgy (do you know that it actually does work?)
> * drivers are dodgy (can happen - is there a newer kernel you can try?)

Yet another possible possibility:

* Is the disk backward compatible with USB2? If so, does it work with a USB2 card? Might get rid of some variables.

--
Glenn English

[Rick Thomas]

On Aug 30, 2015, at 10:17 PM, CaT <c...@zip.com.au> wrote:

> Three possibilities IMO:
>
> 1) cable too dodgy for USB3 but not dodgy enough for USB2 to fail :)
> 2) card is dodgy (do you know that it actually does work?)
> 3) drivers are dodgy (can happen - is there a newer kernel you can try?)

Since I get the same symptoms with a WD external disk (with manufacturer supplied USB3 cable), a USB3 FLASH thumb-drive (no cable) and a USB2 FLASH thumb-drive (again, no cable), I’m going with either #2 or #3 here.

To eliminate #2, I guess I’ll need a different USB3 interface card. Can someone recommend a good one? This machine has free PCI-X and PCIe slots that I could use. PCI-X slots are (according to wikipedia) compatible with PCI cards. The PCIe slot is “x1”.

To investigate #3, I’ve started a different thread on the subject of “What USB3 chipsets are supported by the Jessie kernels?”

Thanks!
Rick

[Rick Thomas]

On Aug 30, 2015, at 10:42 PM, Glenn English <g...@slsware.net> wrote:

> Yet another possible possibility:
>
> * Is the disk backward compatible with USB2? If so, does it work with a USB2 card? Might get rid of some variables.

Yes, that’s the first thing I tried. The disk (and all the USB2 and USB3 thumb drives I’ve tried as well) work just fine with a USB2 card — but at USB2 speeds.

Aren’t computers fun!?

Rick