Hello, i'm having trouble mounting my sony msn710 minidisk recorder.

Distro: Slackware 10.1
Kernel: 2.6.10
GUI: X11R6 - with KDE3.3
usb controller: via VT82xxxxx UHCI

Here is what Info Centre can see

Net MD Walkman
Manufacturer: Sony
Class
0
((Defined at Interface level))
Subclass
0
Protocol
0
USB Version
1.10

Vendor ID
0x54c
(Sony Corp.)
Product ID
0xc8
(MZ-N710 Minidisc Walkman)
Revision
1.00

Speed
12 Mbit/s
Channels
0
Max. Packet Size
0


and here it is in lsusb

Bus 002 Device 004: ID 054c:00c8 Sony Corp.

but i have no idea where / how to find out what it is being assigned as (like /dev/sda, or tty or whatever the other ones are), and i have no idea what fs to mount it as

any help would be appreciated

if you need anymore info please ask

all my mount attempts so far have just resulted in :

root@localhost:~# mount /dev/sda /mnt/superfloppy/
mount: special device /dev/sda does not exist
and all variations also fail, is there a kernel module that needs to be compiled in for it to work, like the visor module needs to be included for palm support, is there one for the sony minidisk?

sorry about the horendous spelling, the excessive questions and the n00bish nature i posses. Afterall i am a
any links to other posts / sites , would be helpfull, thanks in advance

If you have quoted the model number correctly - I have almost the same NetMD. (Mine's a NZ-707).

NetMD's are not USB mass storage devices. On the MD you can only store audio, encoded in Sony's ATRAC format. There are two ways to get this audio on the MiniDisc
1.) Record through the Line-In/Mic In in real-time
2.) Upload ATRAC encoded audio files through Sony's "Sonic Stage" or "OpenMG Jukebox" of "Simple Burner" software. These programs will allow faster than real-time uploading from Audio CD's, MP3, WAV and WMA files.

Unfortunately, Sony's software only works on Windows 98 and later (I think you can get it to work on 95, but you'll have problems with USB support). There is no way to get any of these programs to work properly under WINE until the WINE project supports USB.

The newer HiMDs are exactly the same when it comes to music. You can only put music on HiMDs through Windows software or in real-time. However, HiMDs are also USB Mass Storage devices. You can plug one into your linux or OSX box and copy data files across - just like a USB pen drive or USB hard drive. If you copy 'music' files onto the HiMD this way you won't be able to listen to them.

There is a few projects investigating using NetMDs on Linux - XMD and libNetMD from memory. However, the only 'useful' things these projects have achieved is the ability to edit the titles of songs over USB.

Daniel