Run lsmod as root and check that the usb-storage module is loaded. If it is not then run 'modprobe usb-storage' to install it.

You should be able to access the drive as a scsi device. ( /dev/sda assuming that you have no other scsi disks on your system )

Check in the /proc/scsi/scsi file to see if the USB device is now visiable as a mas storage device.

The next problem is USB. I have a USB Compact Flash card reader hung off the machine and am trying to read the JPEGs on it but again, I can't connect to the device. The machine says that USB is installed and indeed I see that usb shows 97 items under /dev/usb but none appear to be drives, only files so