HI Ben,

Thanks for the reply,

I have no idea what hdb2 or hdb3 are supposed to be.

You were right, the device hdb1 doesn't exist.

brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 64 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 74 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb10
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 75 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb11
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 76 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb12
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 77 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb13
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 78 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb14
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 79 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb15
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 80 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb16
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 81 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb17
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 82 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb18
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 83 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb19
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 66 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb2
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 84 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb20
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 85 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb21
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 86 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb22
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 87 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb23
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 88 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb24
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 89 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb25
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 90 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb26
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 91 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb27
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 92 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb28
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 93 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb29
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 67 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb3
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 94 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb30
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 95 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb31
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 96 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb32
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 97 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb33
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 98 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb34
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 99 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb35
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 100 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb36
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 101 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb37
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 102 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb38
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 103 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb39
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 68 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb4
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 104 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb40
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 105 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb41
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 106 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb42
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 107 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb43
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 108 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb44
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 109 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb45
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 110 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb46
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 111 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb47
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 112 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb48
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 113 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb49
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 69 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb5
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 114 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb50
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 115 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb51
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 116 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb52
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 117 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb53
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 118 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb54
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 119 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb55
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 120 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb56
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 121 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb57
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 122 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb58
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 123 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb59
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 70 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb6
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 124 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb60
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 125 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb61
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 126 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb62
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 127 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb63
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 71 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb7
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 72 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb8
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 3, 73 2004-10-02 01:38 hdb9

And for the partitions,

# cat /proc/partitions
major minor #blocks name

3 0 180941040 hda
3 1 90116586 hda1
3 2 1052257 hda2
3 3 89763187 hda3
3 64 39121488 hdb
3 65 39110211 hdb1


I am confused, how does the device not exist but yet Suse sees there is a drive? I've never encountered that.

Thanks again Ben,

Tony

OK so we've found the cause of the problem.

Here's a crash course

hda, hdb, hdc... denote IDE drives, like hard disks or cd-rom drives.
hda1,hda2,hda3... denote the various partitions on drive hda.

if cat /proc/partitions shows hdb1, then it means that partition hdb1 does exist. that's good. but you need hdb1 to be represented by a special file, which should be named /dev/hdb1. This special file is called a "block device file" and will contain some information useful to mount it.

to create this file, do

su
cd /dev
mknod hdb1 b 3 65
chown root:disk hdb1
chmod 0660 hdb1

explanation :
mknod hdb1 b 3 65 creates a block device (b) with major number 3 and minor 65. That's what you want for hdb1. look at the hdb1 entry in /proc/partitions.

chown and chmod are used to put the proper ownership and permissions on hdb1.

good luck

Genius,

Thanks for the help Ben.

It works flawlessly.

Very easy to do and I learned a great deal also.

Thanks a lot Ben & abisko00,
Tony