LinuxQuestions.org - External hard drive problem anyone?

I just purchased a 250G hard drive, with the plan of putting all my data on there, and then running a dual boot laptop so i can play games on windows, and do everything else on linux. Turns out to be a good deal harder than i would like, and I'm wondering if anyone can help me.
I read the how-to on http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...icle&artid=301 and it seemed like it was going to work, but for some reason or another, it has not.
I tried to edit fstab with what was mentioned in the how-to (using /external instead of /bat1) and as of yet, i have not been able to use my drive.
Here is my fstab as of right now:

Code:

# This file is edited by fstab-sync - see 'man fstab-sync' for details

LABEL=/1                /                      ext3    defaults        1 1

none                    /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0

none                    /dev/shm                tmpfs  defaults        0 0

LABEL=/music            /music                  ext3    defaults        1 2

LABEL=/files                /files                        ext3        defaults        1 3

none                    /proc                  proc    defaults        0 0

none                    /sys                    sysfs  defaults        0 0

LABEL=SWAP-hdc5        swap                    swap    defaults        0 0



/dev/hda                /media/cdrecorder      auto    pamconsole,exec,noauto,fscontext=system_u:object_r:removable_t,managed 0 0

/dev/sda1              /external                vfat    pamconsole,exec,noauto,iocharset=utf8,fscontext=system_u:object_r:removable_t,managed 0 0

What has been causing me the most trouble is the fact that /sda1 does not exist if /proc, so i do not know how it is refrencing the directory.

If you have any pointers for me, please let me know!
cheers

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While browsing the forums for anything resembling this i found another page for flash-drives, and used some of the ideas, one of which is

Code:

tail -s 3 -f /var/log/messages

which in turn gave me this infromation (upon taking it out and putting it back in)

Code:

 Nov  7 19:44:30 localhost kernel: usb 1-1: USB disconnect, address 4

Nov  7 19:44:30 localhost kernel: remove_proc_entry: scsi/usb-storage busy, count=1

Nov  7 19:44:34 localhost kernel: usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5

Nov  7 19:44:34 localhost kernel: scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices

Nov  7 19:44:39 localhost kernel:  Vendor: MAX 0509  Model: 03 251.0GB 7200  Rev: 0000

Nov  7 19:44:39 localhost kernel:  Type:  Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 00

Nov  7 19:44:39 localhost kernel: SCSI device sda: 490234752 512-byte hdwr sectors (251000 MB)

Nov  7 19:44:39 localhost kernel: sda: assuming drive cache: write through

Nov  7 19:44:39 localhost kernel: SCSI device sda: 490234752 512-byte hdwr sectors (251000 MB)

Nov  7 19:44:39 localhost kernel: sda: assuming drive cache: write through

Nov  7 19:44:39 localhost scsi.agent[7569]: disk at /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0

Nov  7 19:44:39 localhost kernel:  sda: sda1

Nov  7 19:44:39 localhost kernel: Attached scsi disk sda at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 0

Nov  7 19:44:40 localhost fstab-sync[7620]: added mount point /media/FAT321 for /dev/sda1