OK, here is the latest of the zip saga.   By issuing "mknod /dev/hdb4 b 3 68" 
everything works great!  AFAIK there is a problem with devfs & the ide-floppy 
module.  Nobody on the Mandrake forum seems to know how to make this "stick" 
though (I tried adding it to /etc/rc.d/rc.local).  All these fixes have to be 
rerun after rebooting or just logging out.  The best suggestion I heard is 
changing the configuration to use the ide-scsi module (just like the old 
days).  Unfortunately, I wasn't around for those days & don't know how to do  
it.  Does this sound like a good option?  Anybody want to walk me through it? 
 Thanks