How to detect and use USB drive from command line?

[MMAMail]

For some reason my GUI no longer starts up

So I need to write something to a usb stick from my hard drive, from the terminal.

1. How can I check if my usb drive is detected and usable?

2. What path do I copy files to for them to appear on my usb stick?

Many thanks,

[ki4jgt]

To detect it:
lsusb you'll see a list of your USB ports and whats on them

To surf it:
cd /media/
and then ls the media directory. it will have a alphanumeric folder for all external media

[MMAMail]

lsusb works and I get:

Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0781:5567 SanDisk Corp.

but when I go to /media/
there's only an entry for cdrom there

Is there some mounting or ??? I need to do before it appears there?

[ki4jgt]

Create your mount point:

sudo mkdir /media/foldername

Mount your drive:

if the device is FAT:

sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /media/foldername -o uid=1000,gid=100,utf8,dmask=027,fmask=137

Be sure to change /dev/sdb1 to what ever the usb device is usually sdb1

If it is NTFS:

sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /media/foldername

To unmount:

sudo umount /dev/sdb1
--or--
sudo umount /media/foldername