USB booting :: Cannot detect usb drive



I have used DSL before, so I'm not much of a noob, but I am having trouble installing the latest version to my pen-drive. What is happening is my laptop is not able to detect the usbdrive when I plug it in. I know I performed a step when installing 1.0 to get around this while booted up on the live cd, but for the life of me, I can't remember it. Does anyone know the (I believe two) command(s) needed to detect the drive?
kind of solving my own problem here, or half-way at least. I have tracked down at least one of the commands I used when installing 1.0 (a<tab><tab>, b<tab><tab>...) . The first was lsmod to check to see which modules I had running. Looking at the list, I remember needing usb-storage, usb-uhci, and usbcore, but i thought there mght be at least one more needed. I believe insmod was then used to load the missing programs. (Please bear with me here, I'm trying to remeber a now non-existant tutorial). the last command i haven't been able to rediscover, but I'll infom you when I find it.
Allrighty then, I'm totally lost. I can't for the life of me rember the command, so any insight might be usefull. Kind of as a background, the tutorial I'm trying to remember rans somewhat like this only a little wordier:
 1. Format drive
 2. Use fdisk clone to make it bootable (I can't remrber name right now and I have no time to look it up)
 3. use lsmod to check for components needed
 4. start missing components
 5. run command to scan/detect for the usb drive so I can mount the darn thing (No I'm not going to mount it, I just need the ability to)
 6. run usb installer program

NOTE: I just need step 5 I. If anybody can think of a similar command, let me know and I'll try it!
thanks muchly.
I have pretty much the same problem, I'm a n00b though.
My lsusb list looks like this on the modules I need:

usb-storage
I have pretty much the same problem, I'm a n00b though.
My lsusb list looks like this on the modules I need:

usb-storage    61696   0 (unused)
usb-uhci        21644    0 (unused)
usbcore         57600   1 [hid usb-storage usb-uhci]

Note: 1st column = Module, 2nd = Size, 3rd = Used by

First of all, what does "hid usb-storage usb-uhci" mean, and second, how do I fix these things.
I need help!
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