[nickwordsworth]

I have a relatively old, but ok spec'd PC

GIGABYTE Mother board with a 1GHz Athlon Processor
512Mb RAM
AGP 8MB graphics
Creative Vibra 16 sound
CDRW and CDR

All I use it for is storing MP3s, the odd bit of word/excel type stuff, and hopefully when it's up and running again, i may use it to record dvds and video by fitting a hardware encoder/tv card.

I spent three hours last night trying to reload Windows 98SE after it died on me. I eventually got fed up with the constant restarting and finding it still wouldn't work, swore that I need to change to Linux. However, all my data is backed up on my Archos 20Gb MiniHD. Having had a quick look via goolge, it appears that there are some issues relating to this working in Linux.

Will Linux work with my portable HD or do I have to spend money on hardware etc. I'm a bit tight for cash at the moment and would prefer to go for a labour intesive, cash poor solution!

[egorgry]

I don't have the archos but I have a mini 4gig usb hd, 256mb thumb drive, and a compact flash card reader all work fine with Debian/Sid. You should be able to mount the device and use it as a fat32 drive. I wonder what's special about this drive that it may cause problems?

[scstsut]

I have an archos MP3player/20gbHD (JukeboxRecorder20) and it's connected flawlessly as an external HD on everything I've thrown it at. WinME, 2000, XP, OSX, Arklinux, and Knoppix linux.