I am new to Linux and don't know too much, anyway here's my problem.

I originally installed Mandriva Linux 2005 LE on a PC with 2 HDD. The primary disk was reformatted and linux was installed as per the installation guide. I left the 2nd HDD as a Windows disk as it had important files on it.

Anyway I moved these files to the primary HDD and attempted to reformat the 2nd HDD as a linux drive. This has been done but now on rebooting I can't access any GUI and only get to a command line (eventually).

In fustration I then swapped the disks over and Installed Mandriva Linux on what was the the 2nd HDD. This stystem now boots ok but no matter what I do I cant access the disk with my data on it. I can see it in the Hardware manager but can not mount it to get access to my data.

When attempting to add a new device I come across the message cannot find Hdb in fstab and Mstab. When I try to mount the HDD I get the message saying I have "no Dev=...".

Help can anyone tell me how to get access to this HDD so that I can get my data off. I will then re-install evrything again and hopefully learn from my mistake(s).

Cheers
Steve

Boot up, open a console and run:

$ su
<enter root password>
# fdisk -l

Post the output here. That will list all the partitions that your system recognizes which is the first step in figuring out how to mount your partitions on the other hard drive. If you know, identify which partition(s) you want to mount and the filesystem on the partition, eg. ext3, reiserfs, FAT32, ect.