Your USB seems to be working OK; we just need to work out what device your USB drive is. For that we need the output, as root, of:

cat /proc/scsi/scsi

Then we can formulate a 'mount' command for your device. Your original mount command was trying to mount your CD-ROM as a USB drive, that's why you got those 'wrong fs type' and 'bad superblock' errors.

Attached devices:
Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: ExcelSto Model: r Technology Rev: VA2O
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Host: scsi1 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: MATSHITA Model: UJDA330 Rev: 1.50
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02

Looking at the mount commands I tried for it before, I tried to formulate one. So, I tried

mount -t vfat /dev/usb.c /mnt/dosdrive

Am I headed in the right direction? I'm trying to understand this, rather than just having you guys tell me the answers (which I know you loathe to do). its a FAT partition, and usb.c is what came up with
cat /var/log/dmesg |grep hd*
which is what DrOzz had said to try. I didn't really understand any of what came up with your suggestion (Geoff), did it say what I need in one of those two files?

Your USB drive won't look like /dev/hdb or the like; it will be more like /dev/sda. Try the command, at a console, as root:

fdisk -l /dev/sda

If /dev/sda is your USB drive, then it will show some output telling you the size of /dev/sda, which will match your USB drive's size. Then it will list /dev/sda1, which represents the first partition on your USB drive; it should show you the number of blocks and the filesystem type, if it exists.

So, if /dev/sda is your USB drive, your mount command is:

mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/usbdrive

You will need to have created /mnt/usbdrive beforehand and run the command:

chmod 777 /mnt/usbdrive

to get the permissions right for you to access it with yourself as user. You can use any name you like instead of 'usbdrive', such as 'dosdrive' that you used before. These steps should give you access to your USB drive.

ok, it all works now- thank you so much... been trying to get this to work for a while. The only issue is, it won't let me change the file permissions. I'm logged in as root, and I type:
chmod 777 /mnt/dosdrive/
and get
chmod: changing permissions of `/mnt/dosdrive/': Operation not permitted

why is this? I also tried writing it out (chmod o+r+w+x /mnt/dosdrive/) and it gave the same error message.

Leave off the final '/' from your command; ie, make it:

chmod 777 /mnt/dosdrive

See how that goes.

Ok, that worked. Thanks for all the help, dude. Because on the harddrive were some drivers, which let my videocard work correctly, which lets me set the resolution above 800/600... its very useful, to say the least.

My pleasure - glad I could help.

I believe you'll find that your USB device is being labeled as an sdX device (i.e. sda, sdb). Every USB or IEEE device I've plugged in comes up as such.