I don't seem to be able to get any devices I plug in to USB 3 to be recognised properly. I've got a verbatim 1TB hard drive to be recognised momentarily but it's then lost and I cannot write anything to the disk. USB 3 works fine under Windows XP and the same drive works when connected to USB 2. I thought USB3 should 'work out of the box'. I've had the same problem with another external 2TB HDD.
I'm using Ubuntu 11.04.

It seems that Linux supported usb3 before Windows.
The whole article can be read here.
Ubuntu does support usb3
I'm afraid you'll have to give us a bit more information such as what box you got your usb3 out of, what is the output of lshw, etc.
ciao,
jdk

Hi there this is the output from lshw -short. Sorry but I'm not really sure what etc. might be, I'll happily give any other outputs, but I'm a bit of a dunce about all of this, so don't know what I should be looking for.


system System Product Name (To Be Filled By O.E.M.)
/0 bus M4A87TD EVO
/0/0 memory 64KiB BIOS
/0/4 processor AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 255 Processor
/0/4/5 memory 128KiB L1 cache
/0/4/6 memory 1MiB L2 cache
/0/33 memory 4GiB System Memory
/0/33/0 memory 2GiB DIMM Synchronous 667 MHz (1.5 ns)
/0/33/1 memory 2GiB DIMM Synchronous 667 MHz (1.5 ns)
/0/33/2 memory [empty]
/0/33/3 memory [empty]
/0/1 processor
/0/1/0 memory 128KiB L1 cache
/0/1/1 memory 1MiB L2 cache
/0/100 bridge RX780/RX790 Chipset Host Bridge
/0/100/2 bridge RD790 PCI to PCI bridge (external gfx0 port A)
/0/100/2/0 display Manhattan [Mobility Radeon HD 5430 Series]
/0/100/2/0.1 multimedia Manhattan HDMI Audio [Mobility Radeon HD 5000 Series]
/0/100/9 bridge RD790 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI express gpp port E)
/0/100/9/0 storage JMB361 AHCI/IDE
/0/100/9/0.1 storage JMB368 IDE controller
/0/100/a bridge RD790 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI express gpp port F)
/0/100/a/0 bus uPD720200 USB 3.0 Host Controller
/0/100/11 scsi4 storage SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 SATA Controller [IDE mode]
/0/100/11/0 /dev/sda disk 1TB WDC WD10EARS-22Y
/0/100/11/0/1 /dev/sda1 volume 74GiB Windows NTFS volume
/0/100/11/0/2 /dev/sda2 volume 857GiB Extended partition
/0/100/11/0/2/5 /dev/sda5 volume 4093MiB Linux swap / Solaris partition
/0/100/11/0/2/6 /dev/sda6 volume 849GiB Linux filesystem partition
/0/100/11/0/2/7 /dev/sda7 volume 4090MiB Linux swap / Solaris partition
/0/100/11/1 /dev/sdb volume 465GiB ST3500413AS
/0/100/11/0.0.0 /dev/cdrom disk CDDVDW SH-222AL
/0/100/12 bus SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
/0/100/12.2 bus SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
/0/100/13 bus SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
/0/100/13.2 bus SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
/0/100/14 bus SBx00 SMBus Controller
/0/100/14.1 storage SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 IDE Controller
/0/100/14.2 multimedia SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
/0/100/14.3 bridge SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 LPC host controller
/0/100/14.4 bridge SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
/0/100/14.4/8 bus VT6306/7/8 [Fire II(M)] IEEE 1394 OHCI Controller
/0/100/14.5 bus SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI2 Controller
/0/100/15 bridge ATI Technologies Inc
/0/100/15/0 eth0 network RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller
/0/100/16 bus SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
/0/100/16.2 bus SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
/0/101 bridge Family 10h Processor HyperTransport Configuration
/0/102 bridge Family 10h Processor Address Map
/0/103 bridge Family 10h Processor DRAM Controller
/0/104 bridge Family 10h Processor Miscellaneous Control
/0/105 bridge Family 10h Processor Link Control
/0/2 scsi9 storage
/0/2/0.0.0 /dev/sdc disk Storage
/0/2/0.0.0/0 /dev/sdc disk

Is this useful too?

alexis@ubuntu-home:~$ sudo lsusb
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 003: ID 04d9:048e Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. Optical Mouse
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 045e:00dd Microsoft Corp. Comfort Curve Keyboard 2000 V1.0
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 04b8:0856 Seiko Epson Corp.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Use code tags with terminal output to make it easily readable.