Where are my drives?

Linux shows all the directories in one directory tree, irrespectively of what drives/hardware they are found on. Generally, this is a much better solution than the traditional DOS/Windows model--it completely abstracts the file system from the underlying hardware. You will appreciate this if you ever have to re-arrange or expand your hardware or add network resources. But for the users who are accustomed to the DOS way of dealing with drives, it adds some extra complexity.

To be brief, don't search for drive letters. There are none under Linux; the content of your disks appears as subdirectories on your single Linux file system (directory tree). On default, the content of removable media does not appear automatically in these subdirectories--you have to "mount" your drives. See the next answers for details. You should also unmount a drive before ejecting the media.

You can access (read and write) a variety of drives and file systems from under Linux. This includes native Linux partitions, DOS and MS Windows partitions (on hard drives or floppies), ZIP and Jazz drives, and CDROM disks. Many less common file system types are also supported. This means that you can download your Linux software using Netscape for Windows, save the downloaded file on your MS Windows hard drive partition, and then boot Linux and copy the downloaded software from the Windows partition on your harddrive to the Linux partition, and finally install the software under Linux.