I'm not sure how, but I have somehow managed to wipe out all of my /dev/sd* entries (and maybe some others as well -- those are just the ones I know about!), so it is no longer possible for me to mount my thumbdrive even manually, much less automatically. Can someone tell me how the /dev/* files are created and how to recreate them? Once I've got that done, I'll explore how to recover the thumbdrive automount I lost somewhere between FC4 and FC 5...

Did FC5 use udev where FC4 didn't? If so after you configure/start udev you should get access to your devices.

If not, do you have the /dev/MAKEDEV script? The links at http://linux.about.com/od/commands/l...l8_MAKEDEV.htm and http://www.faqs.org/docs/linux_admin/x782.html explain it pretty well. If you don't have that either, there's always mknod - have a look at http://www.faqs.org/docs/linux_admin/x797.html and http://www.linuxcommand.org/man_pages/mknod1.html for more info.

Hope that helps...

OK, I have part of an answer; I rebooted with the thumbdrive inserted in the USB port, and both /dev/sda and /dev/sda1 reappeared. I then typed in "mount /dev/sda1" and, presto, there was my thumbdrive.

This still doesn't really answer my question, though. What made /dev/sda and /dev/sda1 come back (i.e., what was the underlying mechanism), and what (if anything) should I do about the others that disappeared?

OK, I do have udev running, but I believe it was there in FC4 as well, so I dunno what is different. As noted in my other "reply," I have the /dev/sd* entries back, so at this point it's an academic question -- or, at least, I think it is. But, this gets back to my other problem: What happened to my automount capability that I had in FC4? FWIW, the following is in my /etc/fstab file:

/dev/sda1 /mnt/cruzer auto rw,noauto,user,umask=0000 0 0

Is there somewhere else I should be looking as well?

"'Curiouser and curiouser,' said Alice."

OK, with the Cruzer not inserted, "ll /dev/sd*" shows no devices present; if I put it in, "ll /dev/sd*" shows /dev/sda and /dev/sda1 both present -- AND, I get a pop-up that says, "Cannot mount volume\nYou are not privileged to mount the volume 'CRUZER'." I have to type in "mount /dev/sda1" manually to access it, and then "umount /mnt/cruzer" to unmount it; neither of these was necessary under FC4.

As noted above, I have the following line in my /etc/fstab file:

/dev/sda1 /mnt/cruzer auto rw,noauto,user,umask=0000 0 0