my camera has about 1gb space on its memory card. this is also the information i receive in sysinfo. but even though only 64kb are on the memory card, there are over 200mb of space that "disappear". how do i fix it? screenshot.

regards
ungua

That 64kb could be the size of the sda directory, not the contents. Use
to determine the space that /mnt/sda1 uses and compare that to the total-free space. If you just check out directory's prefences, the window might just well give you the actual size of the directory (the special file) and not the contents' size, as you might expect after getting used to the Windows way. KDE can give you the whole size used, but I recall you needed to check the prefences window from a certain place and click a button to make it calculate the size. It's easier to use du (disk usage) to see used disk space of some directory/file (and df (disk free) to see free disk space).

i tried to assess the data's size on the disc as you said, but i cannot make it work: http://home.arcor.de/noroli/usbdisk-size_noaccess.png
in the screenshot i wrote "media", but i get the same results with "mnt", even as root as you can see. now i have used the camera to transfer some files to my xp-partition, but, unfortunately, one text file "howto.txt" (0b) cannot be deleted. not in windows and not in linux either. this is new, preventing me also from formatting the camera's memory, as i aimed to do when everything else failed (which is now). can you (or anybody else) help me!? can i format it in FAT from suse linux 10.1!?

regards
ungua

In your 1st screenshot, I see system:/media/sda1 as url. This is, as far as I know, very specific to konqueror. I suggest you to mount your usb stick by yourself. Or you can go to /media/ see what is listed there. In my knowledge, kde mounts usb stick as something like 'usb-somethingsomethingsomething' and not as sda1. If so, go in that directory and use du -hs.
Or you can just doRemember, sda1 here is anything like sdaN (N = any number)

i am so sorry for my newbie-behaviour, but if i type /media/sda/, which is my mp3-player plugged in right now that "lost" 200mb (of 512mb!), too, it does not work. do i type /media/ the console tells me "/media/ is a directory". do i try "du -hs" followed by /media/sda/ the message is that there is no access. so what shall i do now!? and how do i format usb-devices in linux suse?? i do not find this option anywhere! it is pretty annoying that all my usb-stuff seems to shrink.

regards
ungua

edit: wow, for the first time i get something like a message that makes sense:
but my mp3-player has a disc space of 512mb, as i said. what now!?

edit_2: a screenshot, just to make sure that you see suse is detecting the usb-drive correctly.

du -hs gives how much data has been stored. 512mb is the total capacity of your usb stick, and 345mb has been filled up.

okay, so why can't i use the rest of the space then? as you can see from my screenshot, 2,27mb are "free". it should be about 167mb. i would be very grateful for any help!! it is the same problem i have with my camera. maybe it's a virus-for-linux!? can my harddisc be affected, too? i always wonder why there is so ridiculous little space left... (see also *)

regards
ungua

regarding the camera: now i lost the ability to delete anything on it! when i try to delete pictures / move them to my harddisc, it won't work. according to "properties" i am allowed to do so. formatting the cameras memory card does not work from windows either, since also there the data seems mysteriously protected. is it somehow possible to use dban on a usb-drive!?

regards
ungua