can't find an internal flash reader that doesn't crash 7.1

Steve Franks bahamasfranks at gmail.com
Fri Feb 27 08:55:59 PST 2009


> i just bought a store-brand one at Best Buy at the local shop, internal 3.5"
> USB dongle that plugs into the motherboard header.  I think it's a 7-in-1
> (or is it up to 14-in-1???)
>
> Works well, but the devfs has a little trick that if you slip in a USB drive
> after bootup, you have to write 0 bytes to the devname to have it recognize
> slices and partitions...  might be easier to restart devfs or something..

Ok, check, I get it - "be patient, and we're fixing the usb stack,
already".  I was just looking for a solution for *this* week.  I've
ran current before, but given all the traffic and arguing over usb2
lately, I'm sure not going to install it just to get the card reader
going on my *work* desktop, I might as well take a couple days off.
Again, not being critical, I just don't like the answers that say,
well, obviously, everyone has 10 hours to tweak their system instead
of spending $9 on a new reader that works with the old stack.   Buying
hardware that works has always been a legitimate option - just look at
all the people asking about laptops, motherboards, and even NICs.

I have personally found very few card readers that reliably detect a
card, then allow you to mount and use it on 7.1 without a freeze, or a
crash on mount or *after* or *during* unmount (I'm not a reformed
ubuntu user, I don't just rip the card out and expect it to work).
More typically, however, they just never show a card inserted.  I'm
going to have to try the "write 0 bytes" trick mentioned, maybe that
looks like it will take me from 75% dead readers to 75% working
readers.  Several of my working readers under 6.3 quit under 7.x.  The
only brand that I've found to be a slam dunk is "i-rocks" and they
don't make an internal.

The guys working on usb2 should get a donation of about 50 cases of
beer a piece when this is over - anyone want to start a pool?

Steve


More information about the freebsd-questions mailing list