As part of using all the hardware from my old Windows system, I've attempted to use my Western Digital external hard drive. I can see that it is connected through the usb port, but I have not been able to mount it. I know that the formatting is the FAT32 from the Windows system, but I don't know how to enter the directory to tell it to read it in the right way so i can use it again.
I have the Linux+ book and have looked for the line commands necessary to do this and I'm still lost!

Try mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /usb/c -o rw,gid=usb as root after a mkdir /usb and mkdir /usb/c where the sda1 is whatever fdisk -l tells you is the device used for the USB drive. Note: That assumes that any of your users needing to access the device will be members of the usb group.

Once the device is mounted, a ls /usb/c should list its top-level directory, and a find /usb/c should list the entire disk contents.

Aside: You can set up a udev rule that can assign a device name based on, e.g., a device serial number. Thus udev lets you mount devices automatically using device names you assign.

<edit>
You can substitute "external drive" for "usb" in the above discussion, and, of course, use any mount point you want to use. /usb/c is just a suggestion.
</edit>

PTrenholme has some great advice and tips on his post.
Does the command lsusb in konsole show your usb drive? if so it can be accessed in the normal ways.
I was wondering if you tried to use KwikDisk? KwikDisk is able to mount any drive that I have. Another way I mount drives is to access them via konquerors side panel. Click on services, Storage media and you may be able to access your windows drive. If these tips don't work then you will need to follow PTrenholme's post.

FWIW,
can be combined as:
RTM

I used all the information shared here in an effort to mount the Wetern Digital external drive with no success so far. I'm using a usb hub with a HP printer, a LabTec WebCam, a Memorax Flash Drive and the Western Digital Ext Drive attached. When I use KInfo and go to the usb setting, I can see that all of this devices are listed, right down to the serial number of the devices. The sda1 device number is used for the flash drive and fdisk -l command line only yields a reading on the hda and its partitions and the sda1 flash drive. There is no device code for the external hard drive that is connected to the system listed here???? Is there a way to assign a device code to this external drive??? Obviously if the KInfo can identify the serial number of the Western Digital device, it's connection is registering electronically, what do I need to do to get the program(s) to identify and include it so it can be mounted????

from the X window:

root@2[~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 20.4 GB, 20485785600 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2490 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 1216 9765625 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 1216 1338 976562+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda3 1338 2313 7834960+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sda: 1031 MB, 1031798784 bytes
16 heads, 32 sectors/track, 3936 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 512 * 512 = 262144 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 3936 1007600 e W95 FAT16 (LBA)

In the first reply here at LinuxQuestions, it was suggested that "external drive" could be substituted for "usb" in the command line. When I changed sda1 to sda2 and usb to ext dr. I received:

root@2[~]# mount -t vfat dev/sda2 /externaldrive/c -o rw,gid=usb
mount: mount point /externaldrive/c does not exist

What am I missing here?

In the second reply it was suggested that I use the command line 'lsusb' and this command produced the following:
root@2[~]# lsusb
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 03f0:2f11 Hewlett-Packard
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 046d:08a2 Logitech, Inc. Labtec WebCam Pro
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 058f:9254 Alcor Micro Corp. Hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 08ec:0008 M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 1058:0300 Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Once again this shows the external drive, what can I do with this information to mount this drive for use with the Linux system???

I'm still looking through my reference book to see if I can find a solution as well. Any further suggestions???

"mount: mount point /externaldrive/c does not exist"

If this is not an existing directory you have to create it first.

I'm back with the desire to actually use my external hard drive to store and back up my data and files before I try and install Mepis 7.0, so I searching again for a solution to this situation with the external hard drive. Wondering if there will be new software tools in the new OS that will perhaps make the use of the old external hard drive work?

In Mepis, you need to create whatever directories you want to use to mount the usb drive to as suggested above. The message below which you got when trying to mount tells you there is no directory named "externaldrive" or "c".

mount: mount point /externaldrive/c does not exist"

So, just create the directories "externaldrive" (or whatever you want to call it) and "c" and try the mount command again.