USB flash memory drive question
 

I've got Fedora core 2.4 up and running and am using gnome as a GUI. When i plug in my USB flash memory drive (32 MB) the hardware browser finds it and tells me it is located at /dev/sda . It also indicates that it is sda1 which makes sense ,i guess, as the drive is only 32 MB and has no partitions.

If i create a openoffice word doc and try to save it using the GUI interface i can click to /dev but there is no directory for sda or sda1. If i work from the console i can “cd” to /dev but if i try to make a directory for sda in /dev i'm told the file exists but it is not a directory. Perhaps it is a symbolic link ??

So, is there a way to move files onto this device/drive using the gnome GUI or should i try to use the “mv” command and see what happens. Another possible factor is that i previously used the USB drive on a windows machine and it may be a FAT 32 file system.

i'm very happy with the Linux system and have ordered Mandrake 9.2 CD's with plans to put it on all my computers. Being a “old guy” and a “newby” i'm a little afraid to use commands when logged in as root. If i screw up my system i won't be able to brag to my buddies about how teck savvy i am migrating to Linux : ) Actually, i'm using this machine as a experiment to learn on and it would not be the end of the world.

Thanks in advance for any direction offered and for everyones efforts in the open source world. paul

there is a partition on the drive, it's sda1., whereas the device itself is sda. you need to mount his to actually look at the files, these are just device nodes, not directories or data.

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usbstick

assuming /mnt/usbstick is an empty directory that already exists. once you run that, your files should be available there.

Thanks for the fast answer. Work has kept me away from this computer.

I did not have a /mnt/usbstick directory but i was able to create one and i can now save a openoffice doc to it graphicly. I have not been able to get to /dev/sda1 graphicly. I have a /dev/usb directory which has several “device nodes” in it. This may not be important.

When i ran "mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usbstick" i got the prompt:
"mount: you must specify the file system type"
The gnome hardware browser sez no file system for sda1 so this may be my problem

i messed around trying to use the cp command and i can get files from the desktop to the mnt/usbstick directory i made but i can't seem to get them to dev/sda1. I have tried to read from and copy files to sda1. I used my old windows machine to put a word doc on the usbstick. Also at one point late last night after i ran the mount:command line you sugested i got a prompt that the drive was mounted but i still could not ls any files or copy. The sda1 drive/partition does not show up on the gnome disk management mounting tool . Is it supposet to?

Thanks again for any ideas or direction on how to proceed. paul