Hi,
I wonder how can I mount as existing HD (FAT fs) with data on it. It was pulled from a Windows OS. THanks for all your help!

Eric

mount -t vfat /dev/hdXY /mnt/<mount dir>

create a directory in /mnt
and then you have to figure out what XY is for that harddrive
X will depend on where its connected in the computer
a-primary master
b-primary slave
c-secondary master
d-secondary slave
( i think thats it someone correct me if I'm wrong )
if there is only one partition then Y will be 1

so I hope this helps

edit: forgot if you want it automount at boot then you will need to edit the fstab file in the /etc directory search around there is alot of help for that.

Plug it into the box, of course.

You'll need to determine the drive designation...
...primary master = hda
...primary slave = hdb
...secondary master = hdc
...secondary slave = hdd

The easiest thing to do is run fdisk -l , as root. This will list all partitions on all your drives. Make a note of what partition numbers show up on the drive you want to mount. Prob'ly a 1, maybe a 5, and then a 6+. The 1 would have been C:, the 5 is an extended partition. The 6 and greater are logical partitions, D:, E:, etc.

Then, you need to create a mount point... As root, run mkdir /mnt/test .

Now, we can put it all together... As root, run mount -t vfat /dev/hdX# /mnt/test , replacing the X# with the appropriate letter and number. You can then look inside the /mnt/test directory to see what's on the partition.

Unmount with umount /mnt/test . Notice that there isn't an N between the U and the M. You can then mount another partition on the drive, if there are any, by re-running the mount command with the new partition number.