Hello
There are 2 partitions (fat32) in my USB hard-disk.
1st partiton (E:\) contains directory "hello"
2nd partition (F:\) contains directory "world"
as shown in Windows.

In Red Hat 9, I am able to mount it by adding the following line in file "/etc/fstab"

/dev/sda1 /mnt/usb1 vfat noauto,user,rw,exec 0 0

and access it by % mount /mnt/usb1
(solution based on thread post by "nalmo" Aug 13 post #7)

but what i see is ONLY directory "hello", which is in the 1st partition.
I have tried various methods to access the 2nd partition by altering the partition number to "sda2" and even the master/slave configuration to "sdb" like each of the following

/dev/sda2 /mnt/usb1a vfat noauto,user,rw,exec 0 0
/dev/sda3 /mnt/usb1a vfat noauto,user,rw,exec 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb1a vfat noauto,user,rw,exec 0 0

and access it by %mount /mnt/usb1a

The mount failed with prompt

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda2,
or too many mounted file systems
(aren't you trying to mount an extended partition,
instead of some logical partition inside?)

Can anyone help? Thanks in advance ....

To see how the drive is partitioned log in as root and enter the command in a console window:
fdisk -l /dev/sda (that is a small L)

I assume that the drive was partition in windows. It is usual for windows to create an additional drive as a logical partition so your f:\ device ID is /dev/sda5. Device /dev/sda2 is the extended partition which in a nutshell is a container for logical partitions.

what is the output of 'fdisk -l /dev/sda' ???

cos me mate alan has a firewire drive and a usb stick

and in mandrake 9.2 live the firewire is /dev/sda1 and then the stick comes up as /dev/sda2 ????

very very weird indeed....

thanks to michaelk, db391.

sda5 does it all. Now i see my "world" dir. seems like 5 is the first logical partition number.

:-) :-) :-)

You are correct a logical partitions ID are anything >=5