ubuntu does not recognize usb flash drive

[Rajagopal Venkatachalam]

Executable path: /usr/bin/palimpset
Installation Media: Ubuntu 11.04"Natty Narwhal" release i386
Package: gnome-disk-utility 2.32.1-0ubuntu4
Package architecture: i386
Problem type: Bug
ProcStatus -
                    Name: palimpset
                   Status: S (sleeping)
                     TGID: 1871

[Brendan Donegan (brendan-donegan)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please execute the following command, as it will automatically gather debugging information, in a terminal:

apport-collect 806812

When reporting bugs in the future please use apport by using 'ubuntu-bug' and the name of the package affected. You can learn more about this functionality at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[ImConfused (ed-dori-robinov)]

11.04 This just started happening. When I first boot it sometimes did get recognised. After a while it was no longer recognised. Up until a couple of days or a week or so ago this wasn't a problem. I think an update may have messed things up. One drive was recognised when another wasn't. Then later it too was not recognised.

[ImConfused (ed-dori-robinov)]

When I attempted to mount with disk utility I got the message:

Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 1: helper failed with:
mount: according to mtab, /dev/sdc1 is already mounted on /
mount failed

When I attempted to sudo umount /dev/sdc1 I got

umount: /: device is busy.
        (In some cases useful info about processes that use
         the device is found by lsof(8) or fuser(1))

When I tried the lsof and the fuser I got nothing.

[ImConfused (ed-dori-robinov)]

I rebooted the computer. Now the sticks mount and dismount and mounted again. On a fresh boot this doesn't seem to be a problem. I didn't do any writing to the disks on this test. I think something over a period of time is causing the problem.

[Robin (robin48gx)]

Ubunutu 11.4 installed/

It sees USB sticks. A few updates later, it does not.

Great.
Maybe its my h/w I think.
So I go to a partition that boots an old version of windows XP.
Guess what, it sees the flash drive.

I reboot into ubunut. It can't see it.
I can "su - ; fdisk -l; mkdir /dozyopensource; mount /dev/whatever /dozyopensource;"
and then see my photos but come on its 2012...... this type of behaviour will put people OFF using linux.....