when i type

linux:/mnt # mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/flashdrive

it gives me this error

mount: /dev/sda1 is not a valid block device


What can i do to fix this?

It sounds like sda isn't your pen drive. Take a look at the output from "dmesg | grep remov" or "fdisk -l" to see the device name.

ok, for some reason each time itake my pen drive out of the USB then i put it back in, it changes it's location, at first it would be /dev/sda then it woul be /dev/sdb

what's wrong?

linux:/home/mark # dmesg | grep remov
Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Attached scsi removable disk sdb at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 0


what do i do from there?

Are you remembering to unmount it before removing it?

no, but i heard stories of people being able to plug it in, it automatically detects it.

when i umount it, it says the device is busy :\

When it is mounted you can see what proccesses are using it with lsof or fuser:
fuser -v /mnt/flashdrive

Once you only have the kernel showing you can unmount it.

If you get the "busy" message, then it means that you've got an open process accessing it. For example, if opened up a terminal session, then mounted the pendrive and nagivated over to /mnt/flashdrive, you will not be able to unmount it (because your session is accessing it). cd to a higher level directory and you should be OK, assuming that no other process is still acessing it -- J.W.

ok this is what i do in the konsole

linux:/home/mark # fuser -v /mnt/flashdrive
linux:/home/mark # dmesg | grep remov
Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Attached scsi removable disk sdb at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 0


it's still there ?;\

it's still where? What is mounted:
mount

linux:/home/mark # mount
/dev/hda2 on / type reiserfs (rw,acl,user_xattr)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=0620,gid=5)
/dev/hda3 on /home type reiserfs (rw,acl,user_xattr)
/dev/hdc on /media/dvdram type subfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,fs=cdfss,procuid,iocharset=utf8)
/dev/fd0 on /media/floppy type subfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,sync,fs=floppyfss,procuid)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)


hmm ok, so from scratch assuming i deleted the flashdrive dir in /mnt

i would mkdir flashdrive in /mnt?

then what
thats when i get problems..

The procedure should be:
mkdir /mnt/flashdrive

Then for each mount time:
dmesg | grep remov

Mount the first partition n the sd device shown above:
mount /dev/sdX1 /mnt/flashdrive

Do what you want to do, then:
umount /mnt/flashdrive

ok i got it, but is there a way so when i'm done with everything it will kil lall the processes immediately?
is there away to make a script like that???
it's a pain to always see whats running it, etc.

Take a look at the -k flag:
man fuser

Note that this may close some apps that you really want to remain open.