Ok.
I've installed Mandriva 2006 Free Edition on my PC, and added in a Removable IDE Hard Drive (you know, the old-style pull out ones with the handles!), and Mandriva simply cannot see it. It does not appear in HardDrake, and I can't mount it... Yet, I know it is physically there, as it is running through the same IDE cable as the CD-ROM, and has power, so I am kind of confused about why it is not being picked up. Admittedly, I put it in after install, but I have tried rebooting, using my other Removable HDD (I have 2, a 6GB & 32GB), and neither work... any ideas or suggestions?

Have you checked the Master Slave jumpering on the removable drive?

If yes, is the drive partitioned and formatted?

If yes, post your fstab file, and we'll see if we can help you out.

Yes, I have checked the Master/Slave jumering on the drives, and both are set to "Slave"... but, I can't find the HDDs in Linux or Terminal in order to format them... and the HDD mounting/partitioning tool in Control Center can't see them either. And, this is probably a pretty dumb question, (but I've only been a linux user for about 2 weeks), where can I get the fstab file?

Dave

You need to change one of the drives to master, leave the other as slave. It will not work with both set to slave.

Once that is done, you should be able to partition the drive and then format it.

The fstab file is located at /etc/fstab. Since you are new to linux, the leading '/' says root, the beginning of the file structure. Open a konsole. It will open as a user in the /home/username/ directory. Do a 'cd /' without the quotes. That will take you to the root of the file system. Then do a 'cd /etc' without the quotes. That will take you to the directory etc. If you do a 'cat fstab' no quotes, the contents of the fstab file will be outputted to the screen. From there you can use the cut and paste options to put the file contents here, if that is still necessary.

Fix the master slave jumpering first. Then try to partition the drive, then format. MCC has a tool to mount the new file system. Try that in order to mount the new file space.

So I have to have one of my removables set as a master? (I have a permanent HDD in the computer as well as the removable drives. The permanent one is set as Master, with the removable set as the slave). I'm going to try using Knoppix to see if that can see the drives (I have another friend helping me out too!), and I'll post the fstab file soon.

Dave

You are a little confused. There are two IDE buses on most standard rigs. You can have a master on the first IDE bus, a slave on the first IDE; a master on the second and a slave on the second. The term master, and slave are a little misleading. It is a term for an address. So think of master = address 1 and slave = address 2.

If you have two the same on one bus, it won't work.

OK, the removable drive goes through the same bus as my CD-ROM, with the CD-ROM set as master, and the removable drive as slave. So, I'm still pondering this... anyway, here's the fstab file. See if you can make anything of it.

# This file is edited by fstab-sync - see 'man fstab-sync' for details
/dev/hda1 / ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/hda6 /home ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom auto umask=0022,user,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,noauto,ro,exec,users 0 0
none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=ext2:vfat,--,umask=0022,iocharset=iso8859-1,sync,codepage=850 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sda1 /mnt/FLASHDRIVE vfat pamconsole,exec,noauto,noatime,codepage=850,iocharset=iso8859-15,managed 0 0


Dave

You don't have any entries for the second drive. Understand the fstab file is used by the system to mount a 'file system' at a 'mount point'. It can mount the file system during booting, or be mounted using a mount command.

The drive has to have at least one partition that is formatted with a file system supported by linux. There is a long list of supported file systems you can use.

Now that you have the master slave jumpers set so they do not conflict, can you partition and format the drive? Was it previously partitioned, and formatted? If yes, what file system was it formatted with?

Well, I reinstalled Mandriva with the 40GB disk in, and it recognised it, so it's working now!! Thanks for all your help!

I'm gald you got it going. Re-installing was not at all necessary. Work on your linux skills, as they build, you will find out why switching is worth the effort.