i have slackware installed on hde1, with it's /home being hde6 and /usr hde5. i installed red hat on hde2, and then tried to access the slackware /home by mounting:

mount -t ext3 /dev/hde6 /mnt/slackhome

it lets me see the directory structure, but some of the directories are inaccessible, giving me bash: cd: Bank: Input/output error when i try to cd to them. does anyone know why this is happening? the drive is formatted ext3.

Hi,
Except for the file system (ext3), which I know nothing about, I think what you are trying to do should work.
In RedHat, you created a mount point /mnt/slackhome, and edited the /etc/fstab table with an entry for /dev/hde6. After you mount /dev/hde6, does the /etc/mtab in RedHat confirm that it is mounted?
You then cd into /mnt/slackhome and see the directories.
You said that SOME of the directories are inaccessible. Does this mean that some of them ARE accessible? I'm asking because I can't see why this shouldn't work.

You can use

chmod 777 path_to_directory

from Red Hat to access "locked" directories in Slackware. (I think there's a recursive version that can chmod all subdirectories aswell)

Also - put an option in for rw

mount -t ext3 -o rw /dev/hde6 /mnt/slackhome

remember the mounted nature of the slack directories aswell ie

/mnt/slackhome/home/messenjah

etc etc

dowmun, i'm with you, it should work, i don't understand why it doesn't. yeah, /etc/mtab shows it mounted rw, and yeah, i can access most of the directories, it's just about three that i can't access, and one that i can access but it doesn't show any of the files that are in it.

as for chmod 777, when i do that it just gives me that Input/Output error that i described in the first post again. maybe it has to do with the fact that i'm working with partitions of a 160gb drive? i don't know. any more ideas?

Hi,
Please do not give up. I like to try to fix problems, rather than reinstall. (Although I am not proud of it, I have reinstalled plenty)
I also like skyline's ideas about the permissions. Unfortunately, I am not sharp enough to know about the locked directories he refers to.
Is it possible for you to mount the partition and then:
<cd /mnt/slackhome/home/messenjah && ls -al | less>
(I am assuming this is how you have it set up.) You might then see if the permissions or owners or groups are different for the directories you are having trouble with. You have probably already done this, and I know it's not a really good idea, because even if they are somehow wrong, I do not believe it would cause the kind of error you are getting. I do not know what the work "Bank" in the error message means. I will try to find out.

I have just spent 14 SBU's watching glibc-2.3.1 make. I have never seen text move so fast. It is hypnotic. At one point, I swear I saw a chicken do a swan dive through it's own rear end.

well, i don't want to give up, and usually that's my attitude too, except that i'm in school now so i need things to work without a lot of effort so i can concentrate on school.

i was thinking, the way i got red hat to boot up properly was to put this in the lilo.conf file:

image = /mnt/hd/boot/vmlinuz
label = RedHat
root = /dev/hde2

etc.
so i had to mount /dev/hde2 to /mnt/hd first to do this. could this be the reason the slack directories aren't mounting correctly from red hat?

I am sorry. I do not know the answer.
It may be where you have REDHat mounted. The fact that you can access some of the directories, but not all, just does not make sense to me. Skyline is most likely right about the path_to_directory, and the "locked" directories in Slakeware, but I do not know enough about this to even start.
I have googled and looked for "Bank" in the error message, with all the word combinations that I can think of, with no good result.
Sorry.