Most USB keys I'm aware of will work with Linux, though most 2.4 kernel distros have to be configured to do so, and most with the 2.6 kernel will detect your USB device automatically. You can either upgrade to Mandrake 10 with the 2.6 kernel, or any other distro with it, or have a look at this easy to follow instruction on how to get it working with your present version of Mandrake.

The usbstick appeared now on the desktop, and every instruction i followed without any problems, but is gives me some new errors.
 
1. On the desktop is says: Hard Disk (sda1)(not mounted).
2. When i double click on the icon, an error msg comes up that reads: only root can mount dev/sda1 on /mnt/win_c2.
 
I changed my user using 'su root' on the terminal to be sure i was writing every step as a root, right? And no problems occurred. Am i missing something?

1. This is normal. Mandrake sees the usb stick as a hard drive, just as windows sees it as a hard drive/partition.
 
2. Mandrake is funky about this, at least mandrake 10 is. it likes to use kudzo and supermount to do it's work. Therefore, everything is done as root user. I found that it mounts the stick, but will only copy files if you drag and drop files from the file manager. I'll look at my old box (Mandrake 9.2) and see what it does.

evening together
 
I'm running a couple of SanDisk sticks under MDK10, even though I cannot really call my MDK-setup "out of the box". As danleff said, MDK does a whole lot with supermount, and as far as I can recall the sticks wouldn't work properly on my machines at first either.
 
Here's what I have now:
1. /etc/fstab/entry ...
 

Code:

/dev/sda1 /mnt/usb vfat umask=0,user,noauto,sync 0 0

 
Add such a line to your /etc/fstab file and adapt the umask-settings to your liking. But you should keep the "sync" option for USB-devices.
 
2. USB-modules
Contrary to the otherwisely excelent USB-tutorial that DapperDan pointed to, MDK10 here never seemed to really like the described procedure. So here's what I did ...
 
a) lsmod for "usb-storage"
On the console do a "lsmod" and check if "usb-storage" gets listed. If it doesn't, fire a "modprobe usb-storage"
 
a) lsmod for "usb-ohci"
As above check for the availability of usb-ohci (not usb-uhci as described in the article).
 
If both modules are loaded you can then mount the stick via a simple ...
 

Code:

mount /mnt/usb

 
(or whatever path you have used in /etc/fstab)
 
What could happen?
If all goes well you will have your stick mounted and ready for access in whatever way. As it seems that you are running the original MDK-kernel a couple of other things might occur too. This is the major reason why I don't use MDK's "do it all on my own plus supermounting and patched to no end"-kernel. Such "omnipotent" kernels might be of help for a task or another but in the end they just limit you due to their non-standardness.
 
All the MDK10-boxes here run a straightforward 2.6.8 kernel, directly from kernel.org, and with those, all I have to do for the SanDisks is
 

Code:

modprobe usb-storagemodprobe usb-ohcimount /mnt/usb

 
Pity that I never had the time to work out something that works well with the patched MDK-kernel. On the other hand: I hate automounting/autostarting stuff anyway, and so I prefer the "manual solution" as I have it now anyway.
 
Nevertheless, I hope that this at least sheds bits of light here and there
 
cu