In a case such as Sergey's, where the problem is caused by a faulty vfat rather than some weirdness on Ubuntu's side, formatting the disk may be avoided by using fsck:
$ sudo fsck.vfat -r /dev/sdg1 # replace sdg1 with your usb drive partition device file -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/573981 Title: Ubuntu 10.04 - VFAT usb drives mount with root access only To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/573981/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs