USB Mass Storage Feature, PC not displaying as drive. Should it?

Wow, I feel like I'm back on the old cold-fusion or water-fuel project (the H2O2 rocket back pack project succeeded, but had horrible fuel economy).

Since posing this seemingly simple question I have learned a bit more.  I have found the specific USB driver for my Verizon Samsung Galaxy2 Fascinate(SG2F) handset, and found an alternative configuration for the USB & SD card.  So as of now when my Win XP PC is plugged into my SG2F the handset presents a 'Select USB Mode' dialog offering two choices 'Media Player' or 'Mass Storage'.  When the mass storage is selected the user is taken to the 'USB storage is in use' screen with the STOP button at the bottom.  

There is no 'MOUNT' offered in the Status Pull-down before or after connected to the PC by the way, as I've seen in other posts.

At this time a 'Removable F: Drive' and 'CD Drive E:' appear in my My Computer field.  Clicking on either however opens a dialog box stating 'Please insert a disk into drive F:'.  

So I'm still not able to browse the SD card contents on the SG2F.  The very polite agent at Samsung Tech Support just insisted I use an Original Samsung USB cable "before we go any farther".

Comments?

I have recently bought a Samsung Galaxy S from a friend. I do not think it's the original usb cable. The phone notifies me with a menu (choose kies, mass storage or media player) and starts charging, but the computer IGNORES the phone. May I get a hint?

USB debugging is unchecked. I don't have any data at all on this phone yet. I just want my USB connection to work.