Hi all,

I am very new to using Linux and have recently installed Fedora 6 on my pc I have done a dual boot with windows XP all is working fine except for one small problem...

... I have a second hard disk in my pc which has all my movies, pictures and music stored on it, but for some reason Linux isn't recognising that thereis a second hard disk there, any ideas why or how to solve it??

thanks in advance.

Bullit

Sounds like the second hard drive is formatted as NTFS, if this is true then use ntfs-3g to gain access.

su -c 'yum install ntfs-3g'
(provide root's password when prompted)

Check/show the output from the typed command; /sbin/fdisk -l
(that is the lower case letter 'L' in the command)

Plenty of examples on how to edit the /etc/fstab file and using the mount command for accessing the NTFS partition(s) in this forum, look for them or use google.

thanks forthe prompt reply, IU jsut have a quick question, I noticed you mentioned fdisk, will this method you explained erase the hard drive im trying ot gain access to?? because I dont wnat to do that as it hass all my improtant stuff that i want to keep but still want access to on it.

thanks.

Bullit

No, the fdisk command lists all the hard drives partitions nothing more. This information is useful when creating or adding mountpoint entries in the /etc/fstab file. Please see the manpage for the details; man fdisk

Example:

Ok, I checked everything last night and bothdrives are formatted to fat 32,but for some reason if still isnt showing hte drive as useable, also for some reason Fedora has recognised my sound card but when i try testing it i hear nothing, I ahve checked all the connections but still nothing any suggestions please?

Check if both the drives are recognised properly in the bios.
The jumper setting could be wrong.

As for the sound try

alsamixer

Increase the sound and try to test the sound again.

thanks I'll give that a try tonight.

That important stuff is all backed up---right??

Did you run fdisk -l?
Have you tried mounting the drive (partition)?

If a partition is not listed in /etc/fstab, it will not automatically get mounted when you start the system.

how do you mount a partition in /etc/fstab (is this the process that ws explained to me at the start??), as I say I am still a newbie to linux to so any help in getting me going is always grateful

thanks,

Bullit

You get the partitions list, the fdisk-l command. Then using this knowledge create an entry or entries in the /etc/fstab file as root. For example lets say your first hard drive (hda) has one primary partition (hda1) for Windows and is formatted as a FAT32 filesystem. To add this hard drive/partition entry as root one would (using your choice of text editor) add something like;

The mountpoint (where the Windows partition gets mounted to) is /media/Windows in the example above. This mountpoint needs exist (created and available) before attempting to mount the partition, again as root from the console or xterm session type something like;

mkdir /media/Windows

If the filesystem on the partition is NTFS and you have the ntfs-3g package installed the /etc/fstab entry would look pretty much the same with one small change;

Feel free to make changes (add more Windows partitions for example) to this that suit you and your needs.


.

thanks for your reply lenard, much appreciated, however whenever i try to create a new entry in the fstab file i keep getting an access denied erro.. is there any way to stop this?

You need to be root to write to that file, and do the following things
So become root (not sure how Fedora does this either su - or sudo -i )

Edit the file as Lenard said. Save the file.

Make sure you have created the "mountpoint" as Lenard said.

Now mount your windows disk with the command mount /dev/hda1 This assumes your windows disk is /dev/hdb1

Now stop being root, before you have a nasty accident!:
exit

Now you should be able to read your windows files, and because of the entry you have put in /etc/fstab, your windows disk partition will be mounted every time you boot.

sorry for the dealy in posting again, but i'd just like to say thanks very much for being patient with me and helping me this far I can now acess the drive as needed so thank you very much

however one thing im a bit unsure about is installing things (i.e. Alsamixer) in FC6 is there any chance someone could give me a run down on how to do this??

thanks

Bullit.Mosh

The alsa rpm packages are more then likely installed, a quick check; rpm -qa 'alsa*'

If not then as root type: yum install alsa-lib alsa-utils