Guys thanks for all ur help in the past. Silly me i have another problem. This time its my USB Flash. When i try to copy say a 700MB file to my flash drive (kingston), it takes a loOOOOOOt of time. more than 20 mins! when i read from it there's no problem. its only when i write large files it takes so much time

I have installed hotplug from the Mandriva DVD. i dunno whether that is causing any conflicts.

I have another hunch. When i copy a 700MB etc. file, the first 20% or so copies in normal time, then only it slows down (even below 1 MBPS). so i think this is a buffering problem. Another reason for me to think this way is that when i give the command to unmount after copying, it takes a lot of time to do so and all the while i can see the light in the pen drive flashing which suggests that Linux is still writing to my pen even after the copying is over and i try to unmount.

i know its not a problem with my pen drive cuz i tried multiple pens (all kingston) with the same result.

Is this a buffering problem. Is Linux takin too much time to flush the buffer? If so how can i solve this.

Thanks guys.