I've had this system working quite nicely and then I thought I would 'upgrade' to FC2 from FC1. Now, I have an island of a little system:

1) does not recognize the NIC as it did with FC1
2) will not mount /mnt/usbfd no matter how I try
3) will not mount /mnt/cdrom no matter how I try

Attempting to mount either usb floppy or cdrom results in "invalid block device messages" no matter what is done in /etc/fstab. So, I cannot get the broadcomm drivers to the system, so I can get to the next step, which would hopefully be updating via yum.

Why does the BIOS and FC2 installer work just fine with both devices, yet the OS once installed is screwed? Why the hell do neither KDE or Gnome provide a simple way to mount either via gui on the desktop?

Yes, I've used the correct syntax in /etc/fstab which I would be happy to reproduce for you here only I would have to manually copy it down and type it in.

I have vital files on /dev/hda5, if I do a clean install is there any guarantee I'll be able to save this partition?

Thanks,
Tim

If you are going to reinstall, you can keep all the data you have on hda5 when it comes to defining your partitions.

Just don't format the drive.

You can set up your partitions with what you have left - u only need to make sure you have a root area and a swap space and a home partition.

Just set up the fdisk to ignore that partition by renaming it something else.

that should work.

F0ul_ Oli