A few problems

[Jeebles]

Well, the first problem is that I cannot access my windows formatted drive, Mandriva finds the hard drive in the hard disk partition manager, but I can't see the drive in devices or when entering df in the terminal.

My second problem, is for some reason even when using su I don't have permission to instlal J2SE. Here's what I get with and without su:

[root@localhost Download]# ./j2re-1_4_2_15-linux-i586.bin
bash: ./j2re-1_4_2_15-linux-i586.bin: Permission denied

[Jeebles@localhost Download]$ ./j2re-1_4_2_15-linux-i586.bin
bash: ./j2re-1_4_2_15-linux-i586.bin: Permission denied

And my final problem, when attempting to run skype. (I downloaded the mandriva release)

[root@localhost skype_static-1.4.0.74]# ./skype
./skype: error while loading shared libraries: libsigc-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

[devils casper]

Hi and Welcome !

Well, the first problem is that I cannot access my windows formatted drive, Mandriva finds the hard drive in the hard disk partition manager, but I can't see the drive in devices or when entering df in the terminal.

Execute this

fdisk -l

Post output here. You must have root privileges to execute fdisk command.

[root@localhost Download]# ./j2re-1_4_2_15-linux-i586.bin
bash: ./j2re-1_4_2_15-linux-i586.bin: Permission denied

Set execution bit of j2re file.

chmod +x j2re-1_4_2_15-linux-i586.bin

And my final problem, when attempting to run skype. (I downloaded the mandriva release)

Install libsigc-2.0.so.0.

[Jeebles]

[root@localhost Jeebles]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hdb: 40.8 GB, 40822161408 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4963 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1   *           1        1019     8185086   83  Linux
/dev/hdb2            1020        4963    31680180    5  Extended
/dev/hdb5            1020        1528     4088511   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hdb6            1529        4963    27591606   83  Linux

Disk /dev/hdd: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 20673 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdd1   *           1         645     4876168+   b  W95 FAT32
/dev/hdd2             646       20672   151404120    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdd5             646       20672   151404088+   7  HPFS/NTFS
[root@localhost Jeebles]#

The 160GB HDD is the windows one I'm trying to access, and I'll try doing what you suggested for my other problems thanks.

[devils casper]

Execute this

cd /mnt
mkdir hdd1  hdd5

Open /etc/fstab file.

nano /etc/fstab

Add these lines at the end of file.

/dev/hdd1   /mnt/hdd1   vfat   defaults,umask=0  0  0
/dev/hdd5   /mnt/hdd5   ntfs   defaults,umask=0  0  0

Save file and execute 'mount -a' command ( OR reboot machine ). Check /mnt/hdd1 and hdd5 folders.

* You must have root privileges to execute all the above mentioned commands.

[Jeebles]

Thanks for your help, I've got it working now.