In Mepis or SuSE, you simply go to the My computer tab and click on the hard drive and mount the partitions. I have installed Metisse 2007 on a SATA 2 hard drive that also contains a partition of Simply Mepis 6.0 that no longer runs Xserver and when fixed runs in VGA mode only at 640. I want to mount this partition and move my data to the Mandriva portion which is the distro that I want to try for a while. Metisse has forced me to use Gnome instead of my usual and beloved KDE desktop.

I wouldn't mind being able to mount and read the Windows partition either. SuSE and Mepis could both do that.

The first distro that I ever tried was Mandrake 10, and I liked it because it was friendly. However, it won't really let you do anything too advanced. Mandriva 2007 DVD did the same thing. Therefore it isn't just a Metisse issue. Metisse can use my wireless while the regular 2007 DVD Mandriva could not. This is why I tried out Metisse in the first place.

(The eye candy is pretty slick too)

assume your partition going to mount is /dev/hda7
as root:
mount /dev/hda7 /media/data

thats all.

if the partitions are listed in /etc/fstab

then you can type mount -a

to mount all partitions (including net shares).
(edit)
You may need to read-up on permissions before you can access the Metisse or suse root directories

You can use MCC (System / Configuration / Configure your computer in the menu system) to mount partitions.

Open MCC

Click Mount Points in the category list (left).

Click Create, delete and resize hard disk partitions.

Click Continue in the pop up dialog.

Click the tab for the Hard Disk containing the partition you want to mount to bring it forward if it is not already in front.

Click the partition you want to mount in the hard disk graphic.

If the partition is already mounted, the mount point will be listed in the Details pane.

If the partition is not mounted, and has not been assigned a mount point, click the Mount point button in the Choose Action list (left).

Enter the mount point where you want to mount the partition (e.g.: /mnt/data) in the Mount point: text entry field of the resulting dialog.

Press the OK button (bottom right).

Click the Mount button in the Choose Action list (left).

Click the Done button (bottom right).

You will be asked if you want to save the changes (configuration?) in fstab. If you save the changes, this partition will be mounted automatically at boot time. If you do not save the changes, the partition will not be mounted at the next boot.

Note: If you want to mount more than one partition, you can set them all up as above in a single session. Mount the partitions you want to mount at boot time in one session (saving the changes), and those you want to mount one time only in another (not saving the changes).

HTH,

From above:

mount /dev/hda7 /media/data

This will not be a persistent mount point. (though the "/mnt/data" folder will still be there after rebooting, but it'll be empty) For persistence you have to set it up as ernie states above. I add that the above command should look like this if you want write access to the drive:

mount -rw /dev/hda7 /mnt/data

If the terminal gives you grief over an unidentified file system, you add the -t option, followed by the type. See "man mount" for types.

If you do want the drive to be a persistent, permanent mount point, do as ernie sez, except before mounting you should click "toggle to expert mode," click "options" and check the box to allow ordinary users access to the drive. (the "user" checkbox)

Alternately, and for complete no nonsense access to the drive, after establishing the mount via MCC as ernie shows, in a terminal as root you change the ownership to your user name and change permissions to allow read/write without getting all manner of errors.

To change the owner, assuming your user name is "foo:"

chown foo /mnt/data

To make it easy access without grief:

chmod 777 /mnt/data

If the disk already has files on it, (as the questioner's has) the below will change the permissions on all of them to where you can delete, modify, write... all of it:

chmod -R 777 /mnt/data

You can use these with the above non-persistent mount method from the command line, too, to make things easier on yourself.

Note permissions set at 777 introduces security issues, but we're talking about a disk separate from the one containing the operating system here. "777" will make the drive behave the "windows way," the way most people expect their files to behave.

I love LQ. Forget sliced bread.

Very nice (consise) catworld and ernie, mind if I print that.

Cheers.

My pleasure .