I've messed some stuff up and I need to copy something off another hard drive. I connected it to my system and booted. Now I can't seem to access that drive. I've checked the cables and they are fine. Auto-detection works fine in the BIOS. When I do 'ls /proc/ide' it isn't listed. In dmesg it says there is no response. How can I find this?

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P3 500 Mhz, no fan | 256 MB PC100 RAM | PSU SEASONIC SUPERTORNADO-300W | HD 160GB SAMSUNG 7200 SP1604N 2MB | TV TUNER HAUPAUGE WINTV-PVR 350 (990) PCI

First, double check your BIOS to make sure it's enabled.

Second, where is it plugged in?

The second connector on the same cable as your primary HD? Then it's probably /dev/hdb.

A cable attached to the second IDE port on your motherboard? Then it's probably /dev/hdc or /dev/hdd

A SATA cable? (/dev/hde maybe?)

Third, since you obviously have at least two clues to rub together and know about dmesg, what IDE devices are listed there?

I've got it working now. It was one of two things. I had both drives connected to the same cable, and both setup as master. Otherwise, it was malfunctioning memory due to some dust.

When they were on seperate cables, it wouldn't boot with a message like "Lilo - Timestamp mismatch". On the same cable it would boot so I assumed this was progress; It was not. I've found information about my real problem here.

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P3 500 Mhz, no fan | 256 MB PC100 RAM | PSU SEASONIC SUPERTORNADO-300W | HD 160GB SAMSUNG 7200 SP1604N 2MB | TV TUNER HAUPAUGE WINTV-PVR 350 (990) PCI

Yep. Two masters on the same cable will definitely cause you grief. You need both jumpered for CS or one MA and one SL. Which one works better will depend on your chipset and BIOS. I'd start with both as CS...