How to disable UAS on live system

Question

In the past, I had problem with AXAGON ADSA-ST DUAL HDD hard-drive dock. After copying few gigabytes really quickly, everything froze. Solution that works for me is to put following into new file /etc/modprobe.d/ignore_uas.conf:

options usb-storage quirks=152d:8561:u

(I couldn't find original source for this, hex numbers are just idVendor and idProduct of my dock (lsusb -v).)

I need to do same thing, but on live system to backup my original system, so editing anything in /etc/ is not an option. Is it possible to do same thing using boot parameter or while running the system?

I'm using Linux Mint 19.3.

Answer 1

On a live system, you might be able to do it if you can disable and re-enable the usb_storage module.

Check if your config lets you force unloading modules. Depending on your distribution, it's something like

grep FORCE_UNLOAD /boot/config-$(uname -r)

Check what may depend on that module

modinfo -F depends usb_storage

Now if you can unload the modules, set your quirks in /sys/module/usb_storage/parameters/quirks, and also under /etc for the next reboot.

First check if there are any already, to not overwrite these:

cat /sys/module/usb_storage/parameters/quirks

If there are no configured quirks already, then you can go on. (I'm putting your device IDs in a variable so that copy/pasting is easier for others with other devices).

id="152d:8561"

echo "$id:u" > /sys/module/usb_storage/parameters/quirks
echo "options usb-storage quirks=$id:u" > /etc/modprobe.d/local-disable-uas.conf

Now you should be able to restart the module:

rmmod -f usb_storage
modprobe usb_storage

Answer 2

It's possible to edit boot options in Grub. After adding usb-storage.quirks=152d:8561:u near the end of the line with options (before quiet splash -- in my case, separated by a space from other options), HDD dock could be used also in live environment.