basic linux comands. here you have a decent one, not 100% up tpo date but 99% or so http://floppix.com/labs.html.
as for the partitions, what does
Code:
fdisk -l
say?

and the comand
Code:
dmesg|grep hd
might help some.
tell me what these comands say and i might be able to help you edit your fstab (most likely only thing needed) , just a few lines of text.