-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Lars Finsen wrote:
> The machine ran Windows 98 before, and the extra HD has a few Windows > files on it. But I allowed the Linux installer to erase the C: disk > and install itself on it. It's a pretty old machine, too, and I > picked up that old book with that old Red Hat version just to > experiment on it a little. I don't think the extra HD is partitioned > at all, and neither is the Flash stick. I've been using it to > transfer files between my Mac and my new Windows machine, which > functions seamlessly, but I guess it's not surprising that Red Hat > 8.0 can't handle it. > The 'C:' disk is the Hard Drive that is plugged into the IDE0 socket on your mainboard (aka motherboard)... it is called 'hda' (Hard Drive a) in Linux... it is the disk that is set as 'Master', and the one that the computer will search first, for a bootable partition (one that contains an operating system) The secondary Hard Drive might be named 'D:' or a higher letter on Windows (depending on if you have CD or DVD drives, etc., and the order in which the drives were installed), but it will be called 'hdb' in Linux, which names CD drives with a 'cdromX' naming scheme. I ran Red Hat 8 back when it was 'current'. IIRC, by default, it will load the OS into 'hda' and leave 'hdb' untouched, unless you explicitly tell it to do something with 'hdb', so 'hdb' (your secondary HD) should still be partitioned and formatted with the Windows 98 standard... FAT32 file system, (which is called 'msdos' in Linux), so it should be alive and well and unmounted, with the old files still sitting on it. In Linux, partitions are named numerically, beginning with '1', so the first partition on 'hdb' would be 'hdb1', and the mount command, which must be run by root, would be something like: mount -t msdos /dev/hdb1 [some directory] ...where [some directory] is replaced by a specific, empty directory, like /mnt/winfiles The same should hold true for the Flash stick... if it was partitioned and usable prior to installing Red Hat 8, and you did nothing about it during install, it should be in the same state it was in, prior to installing Linux, but still unmounted. To get info on your partitions, issue the command: cat /proc/partitions Your problems with Linux probably stem more from a lack of understanding how Linux works, than with Linux's inability to perform specific tasks. Linux and UNIX-type Operating System are multi-user systems, designed from the ground up to handle hundreds or thousands of users, who may not even know each other, so there are a lot of security-related protections in place, to keep people honest. A typical Windows Desktop machine will mount all file storage devices attached to it automatically, and by default, all those devices will be readable by all users. If this scheme was instituted on a Linux machine, at, say, a university or large corporation, it would open up a lot of security holes. >> If you have not already done so, read the man pages for 'mount', >> 'mkfs', and 'fstab', and do a little Googling on them as well. > > Thanks for your advice. I'm at an early stage of my Linux learning > curve yet and shouldn't bother you further until I've read me up a > bit more. I am hoping that my previous knowledge of Unix will help me > out, but I never was on the sysadm side of that, so I guess I'm up > for a bit of fumbling yet. > Yeah, I felt about the same when I began moving from Windows to Linux, back in early 2000. So far you have asked some pretty smart questions, but I will point you to a URL that is famous on Linux and UNIX lists (referred to collectively as '*nix lists'): http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html - -- - -wittig http://www.robertwittig.com/ http://robertwittig.net/ http://robertwittig.org/ . -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFJLo1b4790tgvai6gRAokVAJ9iOJpoEQp8OEB0gNvkvawRxY0f1QCgzwOT cerG110LzoDuVZWmqAz1ONg= =gVPP -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from this list, please email [EMAIL PROTECTED] & you will be removed.Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LINUX_Newbies/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LINUX_Newbies/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
