usb 4-2: device not accepting address 3, error -71, Creative MuVo

[Eliot Stock]

Hello.

I have a Creative MuVO mp3 player I'm trying to use as a USB flash drive.

After I boot with the thing plugged in, grepping for usb in
/var/log/messages shows:

Jul 27 19:41:31 home kernel: usbcore: registered new driver usbfs
Jul 27 19:41:31 home kernel: usbcore: registered new driver hub
Jul 27 19:41:32 home kernel: usbcore: registered new driver hiddev
Jul 27 19:41:32 home kernel: usbcore: registered new driver usbhid
Jul 27 19:41:32 home kernel: drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.0:USB
HID core driver
Jul 27 19:41:33 home kernel: usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using address 2
Jul 27 19:41:33 home kernel: usb 4-2: device not accepting address 2, error -71
Jul 27 19:41:33 home kernel: usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using address 3
Jul 27 19:41:33 home kernel: usb 4-2: device not accepting address 3, error -71

and lsmod shows:

uhci_hcd               24472  0
ehci_hcd               22916  0
scsi_mod               91984  3 sg,libata,sd_mod

but no mention of usb-storage

so I remove the thing, do

modprobe usb-storage

and plug it back in. Now /var/log/message says:

Jul 27 19:59:29 home kernel: Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
Jul 27 19:59:29 home kernel: usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
Jul 27 19:59:29 home kernel: USB Mass Storage support registered.
Jul 27 20:01:20 home kernel: usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using address 4
Jul 27 20:01:20 home kernel: scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Jul 27 20:01:20 home kernel:   Vendor: CREATIVE  Model: NOMAD_MUVO    
   Rev: 0001
Jul 27 20:01:20 home kernel:   Type:   Direct-Access                  
   ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Jul 27 20:01:20 home kernel: SCSI device sda: 256001 512-byte hdwr
sectors (131 MB)
Jul 27 20:01:20 home kernel: sda: assuming Write Enabled
Jul 27 20:01:20 home kernel: sda: assuming drive cache: write through
Jul 27 20:01:20 home kernel:  sda:end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 256000
Jul 27 20:01:20 home kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical
block 256000
Jul 27 20:01:30 home scsi.agent[2953]: Attribute
/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.2/usb4/4-2/4-2:1.0/host2/2:0:0:0/type
does not exist

Does anyone know what's going on here?

I also have:

/dev/sda1               /mnt/usb                vfat    noauto,users,rw 0 0

in /etc/fstab, but

mount /mnt/usb

sometimes just sits there forever doing nothing and other times
complains that /dev/sda1 is not a valid block device, presumably
because of the I/O errors.

Thanks in advance,

Eliot Stock.