Hi -
This is the equivilent of a DJ going into the "dusty records bin" to play an old song. I've got a hard drive that's left over from a Mandriva Spring 2008 computer and I need to copy the photos off it to a DVD and move them to a computer running Ubuntu.
I can't seem to get the Ubuntu computer to access what's on the Mandriva drive, so I've loaded Mandriva Spring 2008 on another computer. I've accessed the photos I need easily enough, but can't copy them to a storage medium so I can move them to the other computer. I've tried two USB devices, an external DVD drive and a flash drive and can't just copy (or drag 'n drop) the files to the other devices.
This evening I may try a portable hard drive, again with a USB connection, and see if that works.
If there's a fool-proof way to do this by using a terminal, I'll try that. I haven't been able to devote enough time to Linux to familiarize myself with terminal commands. Or, if there's a program that will run under Mandriva Spring 2008 that will let me accomplish the transfer, I'll try that as well.
Thanks for any help anyone can give.

Been a long time since I ran 2008, Mandy's file manager was Konqueror in those releases. It should be installed.

Back the K3B was the program ( and still is ) to burn CD's and DVD's. Actually, I'm not sure if that old a version would burn DVD's even if you have a DVD drive. It would burn CD's I've done that since 9.2.

If you are haveing trouble with USB sticks, open a konsole and run the command 'lsusb' ( without the quotes ) and see if the system is "seeing" what you have plugged in. It is possible the USB stuff is not loaded.

If you want to go command line, a simple copy command 'cp' will work. The command is 'cp /source/dir/file /target/dir/file' will do it. You can wild card, so if the files are all .jpg then a *.jpg for the file part will do it in one command.

Buntu should have no problem with the drive, if it is a working drive. You have to mount it. If you do not know how, then post back, and I'll give you the command(s).

you could put your files in a folder and share it across a network with samba

floppy

If you go the network route, it is much easier to configure NFS than samba.

You have not provided any real information on why you can not drag-drop the files or burn the files to DVD so it is a bit difficult to provide help.

If the USB drives are formatted as NTFS make sure you install ntfs-3g if not already done. Is the drive automatically being mounted and does it have read / write permissions.

What tool(s) are you using to burn the files to DVD? k3b, xcdroast etc. Is the burning app recognising the drive.

Sorry it's taken me a while to be able to respond to the suggestions but I did read them. Cammori's suggestion that Ubuntu should be able to read my old hard drive is the most appealing. I did try to mount the drive on the Ubuntu system (9.04) and got this error message: "The folder contents could not be displayed. You do not have the permissions to view the contents of "gil." ("gil" is the name of the folder inside the drive, so the drive seemed to mount but the folders inside weren't accessible).
Regarding the suggestion to share the folder across a network, I don't have computers networked in my home and setting up a network will be a little advanced for me.
As far as why I can't drag and drop files to the usb flash drive, I'm getting the error message "Error - Konqueror Could not make folder /media/HPv125w/(folder name)
On the question of what tool I'm trying to use to burn the files to the DVD, the answer is k3b (the Mandriva program is digicam) which gives me the option to export the files to my DVD writer but when I try to start the burn I get the message "K3b binary path is not valid. Please check it."
As I said at the beginning, I'd like to be able to simply mount my hard drive in Ubuntu and if there's a way around the error message I got, that would be great.

Thanks.

The permissions issue may just mean you need to be root (use sudo command). You can open a terminal and type: gksu nautilus and that should open the nautilus file manager after you enter your password and files should be accessible unless there is some other problem.

Unless you have set up Ubuntu to allow su to root, you will have to use sudo to get root privileges. The odds are high the UID's of the user on the Maddriva disk and the Ubuntu system are different. So yes, you need root privileges to copy the data.

The USB sticks should mount. If you open a konsole, and navigate to /media/HPv125w and do a ls -l command, do you see any files or folders? You should if the stick is mounted. My Ubuntu system pops up icons on the desktop when I plug in a USB stick. Does yours?

If you can cable in the Mandriva drive, to the Ubuntu system, this is by far the fastest way to recover the data.

You need a mount point. A mount point is just a empty folder. Most systems, including Ubuntu create two, /mnt and /media. On Ubuntu, as root ( sudo ) go to /mnt, and create a folder with 'mkdir' call it what you like. The command 'mkdir /mnt/disk2' would make a directory in /mnt called disk2.

Then with the disk plugged in, as root 'mount /dev/hdb /mnt/disk2' should do it. That is assuming you have IDE drives, if you have sata drives, then the command 'mount /dev/sdb /mnt/disk2' should work.

Hope this helps.

if ubuntu can see the drive it must be mounted?
eirther su or sudo
chown -R you:yourgroup whereevergilismounted

chown is change ownership. -R (all files)
chown --help. more info

---------- Post added 09-06-11 at 01:52 PM ----------

if ubuntu can see the drive it must be mounted?
eirther su or sudo
chown -R you:yourgroup whereevergilismounted

chown is change ownership. -R (all files)
chown --help. more info

Thanks to all who helped me. I did follow the advice to use the Ubuntu system to read the old drive. I work in video production and use editing software a lot, but I don't have a lot of time to get familiar with the terminal window in Linux. I looked for right commands in my Linux handbook and online (I had to set up a root user on the Ubuntu system), and was able to mount the drive, then copy the files.
I'd love to get comfortable with the terminal window but I'm only able to learn a little bit at a time. Thanks again for being a resource.