Please Help me with a Linux Mystery

[kentborg at borg.org (Kent Borg)]

At work I am trying to fix an Ubuntu Breezy install running on an
AMD64 machine.  The first problem is that I cannot access USB 2.0 hard
disks (but can access a 1.0 thumbdrive).  On the console I get:

  usb 3-6: device descriptor read/64, error -110
  (maybe repeated 4x times)
  usb 3-6: device not accepting address 4, error -110
  (repeated with incrementing addresses)

I boot a 32-bit Knoppix disk and it works.  Also, it used to work.
Did the OS break?  Did I pickup a selective hardware problem?  That's
mystery #1.

Not being the person who built the machine, and having a kernel of
uncertain origin, I decided to reinstall the OS (Breezy Badger again).
Being cautious, I installed on a different partition (always leave a
partition open on your boot disks!, and thanks for Qemu for letting me
do most of the OS build without bringing down the server), and I can
boot between the old and the new.  Both work, mostly.  But now Samba
doesn't let anyone log in.  (And the USB 2.0 problem is still there!)

Mystery #2: What is the list of files Samba looks at, and can I copy
them over and expect it to work?  (Or, is it like a database where
copying the underlying files won't work?)


Thanks,

-kb, the Kent who is getting burned out on this.