Have you had problems mounting USB memory devices?

[starter]

I recently bought a Raspberry Pi together with 4GB SD card with Operating System installed. When I tried to mount USB memory devices it just would not work. Also, I followed the User Guide book by Eben Upton in which (page 34) it states that simply plugging-in USB memory device the operating system should automatically install the device and display a page titles "Removable medium is inserted" - this did not happen.

I placed this question on the forum under "Cannot See USB Memory Devices" and received very good advice and suggestions from other users, however, whatever I tried the USB device would not mount.

Today I have bought my own SD card and followed the on-line instructions to download operating system image. All worked well AND I can install and mount USB memory devices with no problem. Just inserting the device produces the expected results on the display.

Has anyone else had such problems with the supplied 4GB SD card installation?

[mahjongg]

If you buy a pre-installed card then its almost always a much older version of the OS than when you burn it yourself. What you should do at the very least is to download an upgrade using
apt-get upgrade

this will install the latest version of all the software (packages) that is on the card, but note that it will not install any new software!

[starter]

Thank you for your comments mahjongg. Perhaps this should be suggested with any new buy? . . . it would certainly avoid a lot of heartache for those new to the Raspberry pi!!

[mahjongg]

Well, pre-written cards do have one very important use, and that is that there is one less thing you have to worry about for first use. But progress in PI-land is so fast that a month old version is almost obsolete by nature.