I just reinstalled Mandrake 8.2. I set up 3 partitions during the install: / /home & /usr. The /usr is for data (mp3's, photo's etc). How do I utilize the /usr partition? I have like 8GB worth of mp3's to copy there, and I would like to use drag and drop. I tried typing /mnt/usr in nautilus (using gnome) but it says it doesn't exist, yet I see it in the Mandrake control center, and it is listed as /usr.
Got any suggestions?

Welcome to LQ, Scruff. I would advise, if I were you, not to use your /usr partition to store photos and music on. Basically, Linux will store most of your programs and their libraries somewhere under /usr, so you don't (necessarily) want to be fiddling with it. Apart from that, most directories under /usr have write premissions for Root only. If you have enough space for your files in /home, the I would store them there. If not, and if you have some spare space on your harddisk, then I'd create another partition and have it mounted somewhere like /mnt/files.

HTH

Thanks for the info. I didn't realize that because the first few installs didn't even have a /usr partition, just / and /home (and swap of course). I figured /usr would be an empty space for me to use. I do have a bunch of free space left though, so I will just set up another one.

I am still kind of stuck. I created a new partition and named it /data. After I was finished it asked if I wanted to save it to etc/stab, I said yes. Then it told me I needed to reboot in order for the changes to take place, so I did but on reboot it said there were errors with hda8 (the new partition) and gave me the terminal. I couldn't get it to boot, so I reinstalled. I just created the partition again, and my cursor is the stopwatch (meaning the comps busy?) as it was the last time. I rebooted right away the last time, but now I decided to wait until the cursor returns to normal. Only, it has been 15 mins and the cursor is still the same. What is the deal?

hmm, i'm not too sure about your errors, but this is what i'd do:

what's your new partition? i'll call it hdaX here:

unmount hdaX (if it's mounted)

umount /dev/hdaX

make a ext2 filesystem on it:

mke2fs /dev/hdaX

make the directory to mount it on

mkdir /data

mount the partition by hand:

mount -t ext2 /dev/hdaX /data

If that works o.k., then add a line like this to your /etc/fstab file:

/dev/hdaX /data ext2 defaults 1 3

make sure that that last number is not the same as any other in that file... and higher than all the others too (unless the first number is 0, then the last one will be 0 too)

hope that helps.... good luck

Thanks alot!! That did the trick. I had to change the permissions for some reason, but I am copying data to it right now. Even the mouse cursor stopped acting stupid.

Thanks again.