Can an external usb hard drive work under MDK 9.1?

Yep, most likely it should anyway... it should register as a usb mass storage device and be emulated to scsi, meaning that it will get assigned a device name along the lines of: /dev/sda, with the first partition being: /dev/sda1 and so on. To mount it:

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/somewhere

That is, after you create a directory called somewhere.

Cheers,

Finegan

yes. I have one working right now and playing music from it. :-)

OK how about some perticulars on the subject or piont me in the right direction. I had it on a win box but I thought how about Linux.
Thank you.

I'll try that, didn't see the other post.

I tried to let the OS find the drive and went as far as rebooting, that stalled the boot process at finding new hardware. Obviously I'm missing something.

don't boot it with the device plugged in. Boot normally, then plug it in. The device should show up when you do
fdisk -l
in a terminal as root. This gives the listing of all available drives and partitions. The USB drive will appear as something starting with /dev/scsi

It should also appear in diskdrake - the mandrake partitioning tool in the mandrake control center. If you need to format it, do it from diskdrake. There should be a tab for the usb device.

btw, I think you'll be happier with the hardware detection at boot time turned off. It makes booting faster. Go to mcc->system -> drakxservices and disable harddrake.

I did all the above, hard drake will not load, it trys, but no go. The activity light on the EXT drive is constantly lit, I'm sure that is incorrect. Now what and Thank you for your support.

[samuel@localhost samuel]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost samuel]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc: 41.1 GB, 41110142976 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4998 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 * 1 764 6136798+ 83 Linux
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part2 765 4998 34009605 5 Extended
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part5 765 827 506016 82 Linux swap
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part6 828 4998 33503526 83 Linux
[root@localhost samuel]#

ummm. On the desktop I have I get similar symptoms and what I do is unplug it and plug it in again, if necessary do it several times. Maybe it does it for you too.

If this doesn't work, what is the output of
cat /proc/bus/usb/devices
and
lsmod
It might be that the right modules are not loaded.

fdisk -l /dev/sda

maybe you find it like this?
otherwise indeed try modprobing the usb modules first...

lsmod

[samuel@localhost samuel]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost samuel]# lsmod
Module Size Used by Not tainted
usb-storage 72952 1 (initializing)
ide-floppy 15580 0 (autoclean)
sd_mod 13100 0 (autoclean) (unused)
udf 90464 0 (autoclean)
sg 34636 0 (autoclean)
lp 8096 0
parport_pc 25096 1
parport 34176 1 [lp parport_pc]
mod_quickcam 41392 0
videodev 7872 1 [mod_quickcam]
nls_cp437 5148 3 (autoclean)
nls_iso8859-1 3516 3 (autoclean)
smbfs 40144 3 (autoclean)
radeon 107428 17
agpgart 40896 3 (autoclean)
snd-seq-midi 5024 0 (autoclean) (unused)
snd-emu10k1-synth 5276 0 (autoclean) (unused)
snd-emux-synth 31644 0 (autoclean) [snd-emu10k1-synth]
snd-seq-midi-emul 6780 0 (autoclean) [snd-emux-synth]
snd-seq-virmidi 4572 0 (autoclean) [snd-emux-synth]
snd-seq-oss 31104 0 (unused)
snd-seq-midi-event 5640 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-seq-virmidi snd-seq-oss]
snd-seq 42608 2 [snd-seq-midi snd-emux-synth snd-seq-midi-emul snd-seq-virmidi snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event]
snd-pcm-oss 43556 0
snd-mixer-oss 14488 0 [snd-pcm-oss]
snd-emu10k1 69268 0 [snd-emu10k1-synth]
snd-rawmidi 17600 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-seq-virmidi snd-emu10k1]
snd-pcm 77536 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-emu10k1]
snd-timer 18376 0 [snd-seq snd-pcm]
snd-page-alloc 7732 0 [snd-emu10k1 snd-pcm]
snd-util-mem 3008 0 [snd-emux-synth snd-emu10k1]
snd-ac97-codec 40160 0 [snd-emu10k1]
snd-seq-device 5832 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-emu10k1-synth snd-emux-synth snd-seq-oss snd-seq snd-emu10k1 snd-rawmidi]
snd-hwdep 6368 0 [snd-emu10k1]
snd 40868 1 [snd-seq-midi snd-emux-synth snd-seq-virmidi snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-emu10k1 snd-rawmidi snd-pcm snd-timer snd-util-mem snd-ac97-codec snd-seq-device snd-hwdep]
soundcore 6276 0 [snd]
nfsd 74256 0 (autoclean)
af_packet 14952 1 (autoclean)
sr_mod 16920 0 (autoclean)
floppy 55132 0
sis900 15564 1 (autoclean)
supermount 15296 3 (autoclean)
ide-cd 33856 0
cdrom 31648 0 [sr_mod ide-cd]
ide-scsi 11280 0
scsi_mod 103284 5 [usb-storage sd_mod sg sr_mod ide-scsi]
usb-ohci 20584 0 (unused)
usbcore 72992 1 [usb-storage mod_quickcam usb-ohci]
rtc 8060 0 (autoclean)
ext3 59916 2
jbd 38972 2 [ext3]
[root@localhost samuel]#

you have the usb modules alright ...
unless your set wouldn't work with ohci but those chances are small given the fact that they are loaded ...

fdisk -l /dev/sd*
if it's not on any of those, I don't know

or try fdisk -l /dev/sdb
for example

Thanks to all, currently it is not worth any more resources to persue this endevor. I can access the device vai my network through a win box. I will try this at a later time when I resolve some other small issues with this system. Although nothing is critical striving for perfection is entertaining.