moutning external drive
 

I have been trying to mount an external scsi 200 gig drive that I have. I have tried mounting /dev/sda1 but that dir does not even seemt o exist. I am happy to give details if you ask for more in your post, but i have no idea what else to list. Thanks!

What linux distribution / version you are running? Is the drive formatted and if so what filesystem?

/dev/sda1 is a device not a mount point.
You need to create a directory to mount the filesystem and then add an entry to the /etc/fstab file. Most distributions use either /mnt or /media directory for removable or other filesystems not associated with the OS but it isn't necessary.

To create a directory using console commands via root:
mkdir /mnt/scsi1 (replace /mnt to /media for your OS and scsi1 to your choosing.)

To mount via console command as root.
mount -t fs_type /dev/sda1 /mnt/scsi1 (replace /mnt to /media for your OS and scsi1 to to match above) (replace fs_type with filesystem of your drive i.e vfat for FAT32, ext2 etc.)

Add fstab entry example. exact options depend on filesystem type.
/dev/sda1 /mnt/scsi1 ext3 defaults 1 2

or for FAT32
/dev/sda1 /mnt/scsi1 vfat umask=000 0 0

See man pages for fstab and mount for additional info.

well, if sda1 doesn't exist then it must be sda-something-else. To find out which sda(s) is picking up the external hard drive, run "fdisk -l /dev/sda"

no /dev/sda
 

there is no /dev/sda whatsoever. I cant tell if it is because it does not update itself or what. I am currently using debian sarge and it is a fat32 formatted external drive which I am trying to mount, so thanks for telling me how to add a fat32 to the fstab file, I just cant figure out what the mount point or whatever is (by that i mean the sda* that seems to not exist for some reason). Is it possible that I built a kernel without support for /dev/sda1 or something? Thanks though for all of your posts, and if I figure out how to mount it I will post it for everyone.

WHen you plug in the device, use the dmesg command to see what the device is registered as. Once you see how it is registered, you can mount it.

Peace,
JimBass

dmesg?
 

I have used dmesg once or twice, but I was hoping how you might be able to give me a better explanation of how to use it locate which device the external hard drive is recognized as. Thanks!

You have to look through the entire output of dmesg. Look for the manufacturer of the device, or the device name. For example, when I plug in a motorola USB drive to my machine, I look at dmesg for motorola. You can make it easy by using pipes and grep, which searchs for whatever follows. In my case, dmesg |grep motorola does it, but you will have to see how your machine identifies your device. Usually, when you plug something in, wait about 10 seconds, then hit dmesg, and go all the way to the bottom. You should seem some info about your device, including what address your system assigned to it.

peace,
JimBass