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USB drives on Debian

I just purchased a brand new Verbatim USB drive. It holds 1 gigabyte of storage. I can't make it work, but I have used other USB drives on this computer, and the drive does work on Windows. I'm on Debian 3.1 Sarge. This is the error when I try to mount it:

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda1,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so
Please check that the disk is entered correctly.

Here is the relevant line in /etc/fstab:

/dev/sda1 /media/usb vfat rw,user,noauto 0 1

Here is "lsusb":

Bus 004 Device 005: ID 08ec:0015 M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 046d:c50e Logitech, Inc. MX-1000 Cordless Mouse Receiver
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Here is "dmesg | tail":

Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378397
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378398
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378399
Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 508378384
FAT: invalid media value (0xb9)
VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev sda1.
DMA write timed out
parport0: FIFO is stuck
parport0: BUSY timeout (1) in compat_write_block_pio
DMA write timed out

When I run "cfdisk /dev/sda1", the partition shows up as:

sda1p1 Boot Primary W95 FAT16 (LBA) [+,-./012345] 899.90

Please help...

The relevant dmesg lines say 'can't find a vfat filesystem, etc etc...". I looks like the usb part is ok.
First comment out the fstab line, and try to play with mount options in the command line, and see what you get:

Code:

mount -t auto (try vfat as well here) -o users,defaults(lots of different options, read 'man mount') /dev/sda1 /media/usb

Try the command

cat /proc/mounts

t see if you mounted the device.

here's mine:

Code:

frank:/home/bruno# cat /proc/mounts

/dev/sda /media/usb0 vfat rw,sync,noatime,nodiratime,nodev,noexec,uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=0022,dmask=0022 0 0

I have a 1gb usb mp3 player, also. Its curious, mine desn't seem to have partitions.

Ok I tried your suggestions, to no avail. When I try "auto" I get "you must specify the filesystem type" When I try "vfat" I get the same error as before:

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda1,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so

Do you use MSN? Maybe you could walk me through a few things, I'm short 200 Canadian dollars now and I'd _really_ appreciate more help :)

I can icq or yahoo msg. Can you?

I have ICQ as well, my number is 256266340. Thanks.