Note: the MAKEDEV.bz2 file you have unpacked is not an archive, so it won't create a directory for you to cd into. Create the device files by running the following commands: cp MAKEDEV-1.1 /dev/MAKEDEV && cd /dev && chmod 755 MAKEDEV && ./MAKEDEV -v generic MAKEDEV will create hda[1-20] and hdb[1-20] and such but keep in mind that you may not be able to use all of those devices due to kernel limitations regarding the max. number of partitions.