Hardware Media

Computer Malfunctions

Frozen Machines

Do NOT reboot a frozen machine. Instead, call the operator on duty to report the problem.

Hardware Problems

First, verify that all components are plugged in and that the machine is getting power. Next, check that the monitor is on the correct input. Many displays have dual inputs. If you are still having problems, contact the operator on duty.

USB Drives

Windows

For the windows machines, any USB flash drive that follows the USB mass media standards should work just fine. Just plug it in, and the removable drive will show up on your desktop.

Sun

For the Sun machines, the same limitations apply. Any USB drives that follow the standards should work. Simply plug the card in, run 'volcheck' and the card should be mounted under /rmdisk/<volume name>. To eject the card, simply type eject /rmdisk/<volume name>.

Linux, ubuntu1

On the ubuntu1 platform if you are using Gnome, USB drives will be mounted automatically.

For other desktop environments, you can use the pmount command to mount the removable media.

• First, plug in the media.
• Then, run the 'dmesg' command to see what device entry was given. Another way to list what devices are from hotplug actions is 'ls -l /dev/* | grep plugdev'. Most of the time this will be /dev/sdb1 or /dev/sda1.
• Run 'pmount /dev/sda1' and it will appear in /media/sda1 .
• Run 'pumount /dev/sda1' when finished with the disk, before removing the media

If you have any problems getting any of this to work, please email operator [at] cs.umn.edu , and we'll see what we can get working.