as root try lsusb and see if its listed, also check dmesg and see if usb is activated and if the drive is detected at boot up
you do this from a terminal screen as root by the way
if its listed under lsusb mount it wherever you want,I'd make a temp directory under your home directory and put it there
mkdir /home/<your_username>/zipdrive
mount /dev/usb/<whatever_drive_is> /home/<username>/zipdrive
cd ~/zipdrive
ls
Or once you figure out what its called device wise under linux you could at it to your /etc/fstab file and it will mount automatically on its own