I am trying to find devices in /dev. but clearly don't understand something.

Using the Device Manager, I find the hard drive listed and looking at the advanced tab:
under Key, it shows block.device and under Value, it shows /dev/hda.

But when I go to /dev using the File Browser, hda shows up with a red X in front of it and properties shows:

Type: x-special/device-block
Size: 0 Bytes
Location: /dev
MIME type: -special/device-block

Why the apparent inconsistency and how can I see the hard drive in the file browser?

The files in /dev/ are special device files.

Compare
file /dev/hda
with
file -s /dev/hda

Thank you for this, but I don't understand. I am trying to learn how to physically locate the various devices, such as hard drive, cdrom/rw, dvdrom/rw, usb, etc so that when I try to install a new device, I can find it, then mount it.

I started with a device that I knew was working and that shows up in the Device Manager, then tried to find it. So is the hda in /dev the hard disk or does it refer to something else? Why the red X?

I installed a DVD-RW but it doesn't show in device manager and I don't seem to be able to find it in order to mount it.

Can anyone assist me with this?

Try this



Type it in the console, The output should tell you what dev/ item is what dvd/cd drive

Mine for example is

So my dvd-rw is hdd

If its not there it's not being recognised when you boot up as far as I can tell.

I know nothing about this - I got it from here

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/sla...ease-help.html

Depending on your distro, you may get mount points set up automatically. If so , they will be in either /mnt or maybe /media

Also, check to see what is actually mounted by doing: cat /etc/mtab

Tell us what distro for better answers...

Apology for the absence, but lots of in-laws and out-laws in town.

dmesg | grep CD yields no output whatsoever, with and without sudo.

The only thing showing in /mnt is a Windoze partition.

/media shows hda and hdc with an arrow slanting downward to the right (link?), ide0, ide1, and drivers. Properties for each shows:

for hda: it is a link, location is /proc/ide, volume is proc, contents: 10 itmes totalling 0 bytes, and link target is /proc/ide/ide0/hda

for hdc: much the same as hda, except to hdc instead of hda in link target and only 6 itmes, totalling 0 bytes

whereas ide0 shows type as a folder with 14 items tot. 0 bytes, location /proc/ide, and

ide1 almost the same except with 10 items

/proc/ide/ide0/hda props show pretty much the same sort of info

???????

Edit: forgot to mention running Ubuntu 6.06. Thanks