i tried to add a new harddrive to my system and i seem to have run into a problem as the computer cant see the harddrive and since i had edited the file /etc/fstub the machine gives an error on boot about /dev/hdb1 it goes to a black screen and asks for root password if i want to try and fix the system. The problem is after proceeding I enter vi /etc/fstub but the file only opens in readonly mode and even after making the necesarry changes i cant save them, I even enter ! to overide and save the changes but nothing works it keeps saying it cant save the changes and giving some error codes. So how else do i go around this am thinking of dl a bootable linux system and see if that will let me do the changes on /etc/fstab any help will be greatly appreciated.

You need root privileges to edit fstab, so type sudo vi /etc/fstab . And yes, it's a good idea to keep a bootable linux disk on hand for times like this.

i did as asked but when i make the change i get an error E303: unable to open swap file for "/etc/fstab", recovery impossible.

on trying to exit after changes i get error "/etc/fstab" E212: can't open file for writing and am using this exit cmd :x!

I will keep trying other methods as the knoppix cd is only reading the boot sector of the drive which has grub but cant read the other sectors

here are the steps i was given to fix it from fedoraforum by stoat:

You don't need to download anything if you used CDs or a DVD to install Fedora...

1. Boot with the first Fedora installation CD or the DVD
2. At the boot prompt, enter linux rescue
3. Follow directions & respond to prompts (answer "No" to network)
4. When you reach the sh prompt, enter chroot /mnt/sysimage
5. At the sh prompt, enter nano /etc/fstab
6. Edit the fstab file
7. Exit nano with Ctrl+X, agree and save your changes
8. At the sh prompt, enter exit
9. Enter exit again to reboot
10. Remove the CD or DVD

i hope this helps someone else someday.

I believe you might have gone about it the wrong way.

First to prove if FC5 can see the new disk you should use the terminal command (in root)
As this will list every partition in every hard disk the Linux can see in your PC.

Secondly you should create and then format the partitions in the new hard disk before you can mount them. Mounting a hard disk means you want to use it as a "file folder". Unless the hard disk partition has been formatted so that there is a filing system inside there is no way a Linux can mount or access a raw disk. I hope this makes sense to you. I take it as you can't mount the new hard drive then it must be a raw disk without a partition inside. When you format a partition you don't need to mount it as the operation is done at a hardware level.

You can use fdisk command to create partitions in the new disk. The "fdisk -l" sees a raw disk and will show no partition inside. After the partitions have been created you have to format them before they can be mounted.

Thirdly you should mount the partitions manually first instead asking Linux to mount it during a boot up by /etc/fstab. Mounting it manually by the "mount" command will enable Linux report to you the first hurdle it cannot pass through and this enables you to diagnose the fault quicker.

thanks that makes a lot of sense as i was trying to mount a raw hard disk i will try and re-install the hdd again as i have learned from my mistake thank you for the directions on how to do it.