what is an sda and how do I use it's space?
 

I made a small sda1 partition at the beginning of my hard drive in ext2 or 3 file format to place a ping backup of my windows drive. however, i can't seem to get into sda1 to store files and my install of ubuntu seems to have put files within it.... where can I get good understanding of the file/partition systems/structures. I'm planning on eventually switching to linux solely, if I can understand it more fully.

thanks for any help,

As root (or using sudo) you need to run chown -R username:username /dev/sda1 from a terminal. Linux has always been a multiuser OS so it does not give anyone access to devices unless it is explicitly granted.

If you need to learn more about permissions and Linux in general, just search google for Linux manual, Linux guide, you name it.

Hi,

Welcome to LQ!

Do you want to access your files from the M$ Windows platform? Permissions for a M$ will have no effect as they are set on GNU/Linux platform. If you do want to share space then I would suggest that you set a space with FAT16/32. Even NTFS can be used but if you want to share without conflicts the FAT filesystem would be the better choice.

If you are speaking of using PING (RIP) as your Livecd to make a backup then why doesn't PING see the /devsda1? M$ Windows will not see Linux partitions or drives without utilities. But the PING livecd should find/see the drive as long as the drivers are loaded for the device(s).

thanks for the advice
 

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