[Discuss] Fedora 28 Doesn't See External DVD Drive on USB Port

[cra at wpi.edu (Anderson, Charles R)]

Ok, so the kernel is not seeing the USB device.  Does the drive and USB cable work on another computer?  Does it work on the same computer with a different OS?  Does the DVD drive have a separate power cord and are you plugging that in, or are you relying on USB to power the drive directly?

On Sun, Dec 30, 2018 at 06:44:47PM -0500, Nancy Allison wrote:
> Hello, all.
> 
> Charles, Fedora 28 was installed fresh; Ubuntu had been on the system
> previously.
> 
> I ran the lsusb command first before connecting the DVD drive and again
> after. The list of devices did not change.
> 
> Here is the output of the two commands:
> 
> [theauthor at new-host-2 ~]$ lsusb
> Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:8001 Intel Corp.
> Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
> Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
> Bus 002 Device 003: ID 13d3:5652 IMC Networks
> Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:07dc Intel Corp.
> Bus 002 Device 006: ID 04f9:0062 Brother Industries, Ltd
> Bus 002 Device 064: ID 046d:c52b Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver
> Bus 002 Device 063: ID 1a40:0101 Terminus Technology Inc. Hub
> Bus 002 Device 005: ID 0409:0058 NEC Corp. HighSpeed Hub
> Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0424:2507 Standard Microsystems Corp. hub
> Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
> [theauthor at new-host-2 ~]$ dmesg | grep sd
> [    1.585719] ahci 0000:00:1f.2: flags: 64bit ncq pm led clo only pio slum
> part deso sadm sds apst
> [    1.923206] sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
> [    1.923302] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 1465149168 512-byte logical blocks: (750
> GB/699 GiB)
> [    1.923341] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
> [    1.923346] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
> [    1.923462] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled,
> doesn't support DPO or FUA
> [    2.035151]  sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
> [    2.035429] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
> [   27.766377] EXT4-fs (sda2): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
> Opts: (null)
> [19434.731622] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Synchronizing SCSI cache
> [19434.903269] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Stopping disk
> [19435.577907] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Starting disk
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat, Dec 29, 2018 at 11:48 PM Anderson, Charles R <cra at wpi.edu> wrote:
> 
> > No it certainly is not the case that everyone using Fedora 28 has
> > problems with external drives.  Was your system upgraded to Fedora 28
> > from an earlier Fedora version, or was it installed fresh?  I ask
> > because I've never had these issues, but I always install fresh rather
> > than do upgrades.
> >
> > /etc/fstab is a file that contains the listing of each filesystem on
> > each device.  If you open a command line Terminal and type:
> >
> > cat /etc/fstab
> >
> > you can see what yours has in it.  However, I don't think this is
> > related your problem--but we can return to this possibility later
> > after checking a few things.
> >
> > The URL you posted refers to external hard disks or flash drives, not
> > CD/DVD drives.  Modern Fedora systems do not have removable media
> > devices listed in /etc/fstab.  Instead, they are mounted by udev
> > automatically when the device is connected (and media is inserted).
> > This is the udev configuration file that controls this process for
> > CD/DVD drives:
> >
> > cat /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/60-cdrom_id.rules
> >
> > But this is informational if you wanted to know how this stuff is
> > supposed to work under the hood--you shouldn't need to edit anything
> > there.
> >
> > After you plug in the USB, does the USB device show up in "lsusb"?
> > Open a terminal and run these two commands:
> >
> > lsusb
> >
> > dmesg | grep sd
> >
> > and paste the output in an email reply.
> >
> > On Sat, Dec 29, 2018 at 10:12:22PM -0500, Nancy Allison wrote:
> > > Thank you, Dan.
> > >
> > > You've provided some details that I can follow, but I am not well enough
> > > grounded to know how I would use them. (For example, I have no idea where
> > > fstab lives or how I get to it.) If I can find someone to help me out
> > > painstakingly, with a generous donation of their time and effort, I
> > (they,
> > > really) can undoubtedly fix the problem. I may wait until the next
> > > InstallFest for help.
> > >
> > > But this leaves me wondering, can it really be that everyone using Fedora
> > > 28 struggles along with this same problem that obviously affects plenty
> > of
> > > people? CDs and DVDs are not used as much as they once were, but they are
> > > still in use. If you google "fedora 28 doesn't recognize external dvd
> > > drive" you get people struggling with this back in 2010 and 2011. Is this
> > > what Fedora is like -- everyone struggles with problems individually? And
> > > you really have to have a lot of technical knowledge to deal with these
> > > problems as they come up. Maybe Fedora is just too tecchie for me, but it
> > > seems as if Ubuntu was, too, when I used it before Fedora. Maybe Red Hat
> > is
> > > easier for a non-technical person to handle?
> > >
> > > Just thinking out loud. Thanks for the additional info.
> > >
> > > On Sat, Dec 29, 2018 at 7:12 PM Dan Ritter <dsr at randomstring.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Nancy Allison wrote:
> > > > > Hi, all.
> > > > >
> > > > > When I plug in my external disk drive into my Fedora 28 machine, it
> > does
> > > > > not show up in Nautilus.
> > > > >
> > > > > I go looking online, and, sure enough, this problem has occurred for
> > > > plenty
> > > > > of people for 5+ years over many releases of Fedora.
> > > > >
> > > > > I find a discussion in which someone evidently solved the problem.
> > Here
> > > > is
> > > > > what the person reported:
> > > > >
> > > > > "NVM - found the cause. Old entry in fstab for a second swap not
> > present
> > > > on
> > > > > sdb1 and first USB disks being assigned sdb. Cleaned that up and now
> > all
> > > > > drives plugging correctly.
> > > > > Willtech ( Sep 23 '18 )"
> > > > >
> > > > > How do I apply this information? Where is fstab? When does a first
> > swap
> > > > > occur? When does a second swap occur? What does it mean to be
> > assigned
> > > > sdb?
> > > >
> > > > /etc/fstab consolidates mounting information.
> > > >
> > > > Each active line defines:
> > > >
> > > > <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>  <dump> <pass>
> > > >
> > > > For example:
> > > >
> > > > /dev/scd0   /media/cdrom0   ISO9660     ro      1   1
> > > >
> > > > device/partition name, then where you want it mounted, then the
> > > > type of filesystem.
> > > >
> > > > If you have a single disk called /dev/sda, for instance, you
> > > > might see your external CD show up as /dev/sdb. If there's
> > > > already a /dev/sdb listed in the file, that will conflict.
> > > >
> > > > Hope that helps.