multiple hard drives

[Collins Richey]

On 7/15/06, Bruce <bcorbin at cfl.rr.com> wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I need help installing my 2nd and 3rd hard drives.   This is on a new
> system and I have installed Ubuntu 6.06 Desktop for Athlon 64.  My first
> hard drive formatted and accepted the operating system.  All seems ok
> with it.
>
> The install didn't seem to give me an opportunity to format and mount
> the 2nd and 3rd drives.  I can't say for sure that it wasn't there, but
> if it was I missed it.
>
> With ls I found:
>   * /dev/hda (my system disk)
>   * /dev/hdb (/media/cdrom0 per /etc/fstab)
>   * /dev/hdc (my 2nd drive?)
>   * /dev/hdd (my 3rd drive?)
>

Here's the basic story. On linux there are several steps minimum to
making a drive available for use:

1. Create partitions on the drive. As you have already discovered,
fdisk is the appropriate (but not only) utility. On a singledriveyou
can haveup to 4 primary partitions, or you can make one of these an
extended partition with all remaining space on the drive. You can
create (almost) any number of logical partitions within the extended
partition.

2. Creating partitions does not make a partition usable. You need to
create a filesystem on the partition. There are many types of
filesystems, but most Linux systems these days use ext3 (an ext2
filesystem with an added journal for recovery). To make an ext3
filesystem on the first partition on hdc, use the following command.

mke2fs -j /dev/hdc1

Be careful to specify the correct partition, since the mke2fs command
will overwrite and destroy any existing data in the partition.

3. Now that you have a formatted filesystem, you can mount itfor use.
You need a mount point for the file system; this is just an empty
directory. In the past most people created directories under /mnt, but
nowadays some prefer to create directories under /media. So do the
following:

mkdir /mnt/hdc1  (this can be any name)
mount /dev/hdc1 /mnt/hdc1

Now you can create files /mnt/hdb1/...

4. To make the mount permanent each time you reboot, you will need to
edit /etc/fstab and add an entry. Be careful with this, or you will
render your system unbootable.

You really need to Google for an introduction to Linux (online or a
book). Most things in Linux are not rocket science, but there is a
learning curve. You may also want to browse the absolute beginner
section in the Ubuntu forums at http://www.ubuntuforums.org/

Enjoy,

-- 
Collins Richey
     If you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries
     of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for.