I have a Dell laptop attached to a monitor, printer, etc, by a port replicator. The docking device has a USB port in its side, making mounting and unmounting USB devices quite easy. My problem has to do with changing USB devices at the same USB port. How do I do it, without rebooting. Here's the story from which this question came up: I plugged a USB device into the USB port, and after several tries, the device registered at the appropriate directory, but seemed empty. I tried another USB device and tried to read that and found nothing (there is a great deal of stuff on that device). As root, I unmounted the device, and then plugged the other one in. Nothing. I saw what looked like an entry for that device at the /media directory, but ls revealed nothing. After rebooting the computer and then plugging in the second USB device, I finally found the files on it and could work with one of them. Is there an easier way? dj tuchler