An external usb drive should work just like a thumb drive. With the default refracta-wheezy settings, it should show up on the desktop, and it will be mounted when you double-click the icon. If you changed the desktop settings to auto-mount, then that's what it should do.
Input/output errors are not good in relation to drives. Might be freezer time. Try it on squeeze and let me know what happens.
Old enough to not have smart data? Uh, my old external usb drive has smart data, and it's holding my backups from lenny. Only 84 total hours of use, 147 restarts, and 13 reallocated sectors. I no longer count on this drive for anything important.
I'm guessing a 32gb thumb drive isn't going to come close to your needs. If you have space on a second computer, maybe back up across the local network.
Also try this in root terminal:
- Code: Select all
tail -f /var/log/messages
and then plug in the drive and see what comes up in the terminal. Plug/unplug should show connect/disconnect (also model and vendor info.)