i have a question about hal and how it detect my usb stick
im using disk mounter applet in gnome. after i insert usb another mount point appears
but when i try to mount it, it using /dev/sda path instead /dev/sda1 that usb really is
so i cant mount it. looks like hal assign wrong path to device. i get:
"mount: can't find /dev/sda in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab"

any ideas?

Can you mount it manually through the command line?

Something to the effect of ...

#mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/<mountpoint>

Couple questions:

Which version of Slackware?

If its 10.2, which Gnome package set did you install?

I have no solution, but I can verify that I have similar behavior.

I have a fresh Slack 10.2 + Dropline 2.12.1. I have an iRiver MP3 player flashed with the USB Mass Storage firmware. It cannot be mounted automatically. I get the same message as you. I also noticed that it appears to try and mount /dev/sda1, when mounting /dev/sda is what is needed. The format of the device is listed under Windows XP as FAT (not FAT32).

Manually mounting the device works just fine ("mount -t vfat -o shortname=win95,uid=1000,gid=100 /dev/sda /mnt/hd").

i have slackware 10.2 and freerock gnome current (gnome 2.12.1)

yes i can manualy mount it with #mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/<mountpoint>
but not with #mount -t vfat /dev/sda /mnt/<mountpoint>

When I've mounted my USB flash drive, it's always been with the partition number included (the '1'). Were you able to mount it from /dev/sda before? I've always just done the /dev/sda1. I was under the impression you always had to specify the actual partition number as well.

yes but this is not a problem. i can always mount it manualy with mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/<mountpoint> and works fine.
the problem is that hal detect it as /dev/sda so gnome cant automaticly mount it.

i solve the problem. my system was upgraded from 10.1 so
during the upgrade new RC scripts become .new and i was still running on old ones.
so i overwrited old rc.scripts with one in .new and its working now