Debian Linux USB stick not detected

My friend has Debian linux, and it won't detect his USB drive. At all. It's like it isn't even there. We tried all the USB ports, and still nothing.

HALP!

*Thread moved to Other Operating Systems and Projects.*

Do you get any indication from dmesg when you insert the device? the output should look similar to this:

[52529.831635] usb 4-2: new high-speed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd
[52530.047919] usb 4-2: New USB device found, idVendor=0781, idProduct=5535
[52530.047926] usb 4-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[52530.047931] usb 4-2: Product: Ultra Backup
[52530.047935] usb 4-2: Manufacturer: SanDisk
[52530.047938] usb 4-2: SerialNumber: 43175113E6533D6A
[52530.103826] usb-storage 4-2:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[52530.104579] scsi4 : usb-storage 4-2:1.0
[52530.104667] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[52530.107884] usbcore: registered new interface driver uas
[52531.102713] scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access     SanDisk  Ultra Backup     8.32 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
[52531.103331] sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
[52531.103428] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] 15745023 512-byte logical blocks: (8.06 GB/7.50 GiB)
[52531.103568] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
[52531.103572] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 45 00 00 08
[52531.103712] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page found
[52531.103715] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[52531.107366]  sdc: sdc1
[52531.108836] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk