Debian won't see my hard drive.

I have two drives. Debian is installed on hdd. Windows is installed on hda. Windows can't see hdd, Debian can't see hda.

How do I mount hda on Debian?

There are hard things that can cause this, and easy things. Since I do not know you, I will assume you are a raw newbie to linux,k and give an easy answer, and if you are advanced beyond that, I am not smart enough to help you.

Easiest solution:

Mount that HD.

open a terminal, it looks like a small monitor.

type:

mkdir /mnt/hda1 <enter>

mount /dev/hdd1 /mnt/hda1 <enter>

Of course, I am assuming Win is at partition 1 of hda, and Debian is at hdd partition 1. If not, you will need to figure it out and change the numbers.

This only lasts until you shut down. You will need to google for the mount HD command, and edit the /etc/fstab so it mounts automatically when you boot. That is harder only because you must learn how to edit, kwrite from KDE, or vi/vim from terminal.

Windows cannot normally see linux partitions at all. If you installed Debian in ext2 or ext3 filesystem, you can download free explore2fs.exe which yu can find with google, and install it in Win partition like any .exe file. it lets you select an individual file in linux, and export it to the Win partition.

If you win is ntfs, then that is harder, and you will need to do some serious work before you can write to Win, but most distros let you read (i.e. -read or copy to linux) from ntfs. Fat 32 is a piece of cake from linux.

If you are brand new to linux, then it may well be that lack of knowledge of linux is your real problem. This URL is not the place for raw newbies to learn linux, since it is specialized. try www.justlinux.com, read rules before posting. Usually, googling for your exact problem or error message si the first thing to do when you have a problem.

Thanks for your reply:

I mounted it sucessfully, and typing ls in the root terminal shows the files on the NTFS windows drive. However, if I try to open the drive in KDE, it says that it cannot open it. Is this something to do with permissions?

Thanks for your help!