I've tried reformating the Jumpdrive in Win98SE on another machine and tried it again in Knoppix but same result. I didn't dare use Fdisk on it yet, I want to try the tip that you very kindly included as a link in your message. I have an idea, correct me if I am wrong: could it be that the stick is factory-formatted to FAT16 ? You're right, my CD burner is the only CD drive in the laptop. I've done a lot of trawling on the Net, seems like there are tons of people out there with similar problems, regarding USB stick being recognised. I am trying to find the quickest way to off load the files from the XP drive and then start afresh with Linux. I have been downloading ISO images of other live CDs just to see if they would recognise the Jumpdrive. I figured that I could continue with my work while it's downloading and then I could see if that particular distribution recognises the stick - the exercise would also help note which flavour of Linux appeals to me. Both Suse and Slack recognised the Jumpdrive straight off but when I try to mount, they both give me 'bad block' or incorrect filesystem type error messages. That got me thinking that your suspicions were probably right, they can see the device, they just don't like the media format. So my next approach is to try Harry's idea, if that fails I will have to go and buy another USB stick, perhaps a brand that is definitely detected by Knoppix (my favourite distro still) and hopefully check that it's FAT32 formattable (or even NTFS). Could I format the current USB stick through Knoppix?