2 questions here
first, i have two drives, a small one that i just made for linux and my main one which still has Win98 and all my stuff
how can i access my main one?
i went to /dev/hda1 or something like that dont remember and it treats the drive as an unknown file type

second, Linux is quite obviously built for having a bunch of users and remote access. Is there any way to treat linux as an ftp? just give a friend a program and say "here your login and password is x/x check out my computer sometime"

Thanks

I'll take a shot.

You have to have an entry in /etc/fstab if you want your windows partition to be mounted at boot and visible in a file manager like konqueror, e.g.

Mine looks like this:

/dev/hda1 /mnt/win_c vfat user,exec,umask=0,codepage=850,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0

See man mount and man fstab. The second item in this entry, /mnt/win_c, is the mount point of that partition. So, you have to make this in the /mnt directory:

# mkdir /mnt/win_c

Now, you should be good to go. Good luck.

ok, im sorry about this, but i just got very little of what you just said
I am a total newb at this, i just got linux yesterday

if you could dumbify the above just a couple notches it would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Well, I am not an expert. What distro are you running? What I know is mostly Mandrake.

There should be documentation on your machine that is accessible by typing

$ man [name of command/program]

Do this at a terminal, console, or konsole [in kde]. The '$' sign is when you are user. If you type '$ su' and give the root password, the prompt changes to '#', which is when you are root, to be used sparingly for administration, such as when creating files and directories anywhere but your /home/'user' directory. Therefore,

# mkdir /mnt/win_c

for creating the mount point in your directory tree to access your windows partition.

Do $ man mount, $ man mkdir, $ man fstab, $ man [anything] to see if there is a manual entry for that command/executable and, if so, to learn about it.

To add the line to /etc/fstab that mounts your windows directory, you need to be root, such as

# xemacs /etc/fstab

which loads /etc/fstab into the editor xemacs, as root, where you can add the line and save to change the file, for example.

You need to do some reading to learn these things. Start with your distros website and look for help, tutorial, documentation links.

http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ is a good place to start. Also, http://www.stormloader.com/jrusso2/index.html

Good luck.

im using mandrake 8.0, im also using kde.
ok, i was got to the fstab thingy and i see where i could enter in the line of code, but is this the correct code for me?
can i just paste in the

/dev/hda1 /mnt/win_c vfat user,exec,umask=0,codepage=850,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0??

i think i can make the directory and i understand that

again, thanks

When you edit one of these files and add something to the end, be sure the last thing you type in the editor is a carriage return (Enter) as this creates a blank "new line" at the end of the file and things sometimes don't work if you don't.

win_c is arbitrary, it's what Mandrake put in fstab when I installed 8.0 but you have to be consistent and call it the same thing in /mnt (the way you installed must have somehow prevented Mandrake from automatically making these entries?).

I would guess you could use the same line and same /mnt/win_c directory. The one thing I see as different from 7.2 is that iocharset=iso8859-1. Oh yeah, codepage=850. I don't know why. Here's my 7.2 entry:

/dev/hda1 /mnt/win_c vfat umask=0,nosuid,user,nodev,exec 0 0

Keep in mind that these are typed as all one line. There is a space after vfat and no carriage returns within the line. Here, hda is the first hard drive and hda1 is the first partition on that drive, hda2 is the second partition, hdb is the second hard drive, hdb1 is the first partition on the second hard drive, etc. Write whatever represents your windows partition.

If fstab is not right, I believe it will not boot. In that case, you would have to do 'rescue' from the Install CD1 or boot from a floppy. At that point, you will be in a generic linux in ram and you will have to mount your installed directory tree to fix it:

# mount /dev/hdb1 /mnt/disk -t ext2 (or reiserfs)
# cd /mnt/disk
# chroot /mnt/disk (makes / the top of your mounted file system)
# less /etc (displays contents of /etc one page at a time, advanced with the space bar)

When you edit fstab, Mandrake should make a backup such as fstab~. Make sure you have this before you reboot, in case you want to go back. # less should show you it is there and you can do:

# mv fstab fstab.bak (if you want to keep the troublemaker)
# mv fstab~ fstab
# shutdown -r now

Take the boot media out, you should reboot back to where you were before but at least you have linux booting again.

As I said, I am not an expert but I believe this to be fairly accurate and maybe you can do something with it.

Good luck.

Thanks a lot rolf, i got it working
hope i can repay the favor one of these days when i actually get used to this system

Later