How to mount hdb to access old files
 

I've attached my old debian hdd as slave on a mandrake os. The control centre shows the drive as plugged in but I can't mount it to access the old files. I've tried mount -t auto /dev/hdb /mnt/hdb and variations of this but get wrong fs plus other messages. can anyone help please?

You will need to specify a partition:
mkdir /mnt/hdb1
mount /dev/hdb1 /mnt/hdb1

For the second partition:
mkdir /mnt/hdb2
mount /dev/hdb2 /mnt/hdb2

more info?
 

thank you. now I'm getting message to specify file system type

I have no idea what filesystem you were using - you should know that - you can specify it with a "-t" switch on the mount command - eg:
mount -t ext3 /dev/hdb1 /mnt/hdb1