CF Memory Card in PCMCIA Adapter

What is the best way to set up read/write to a compact flash memory card (as a disk device) in SuSE 8.1? I used Mandrake 8.2 last, and the card showed up as hde and I was able to mount it and r/w with no problem. I did always get an error on boot that hde was "not a valid block device". I there a better way to set this device up, say as a hotplug (not that I know how to do that yet, but am willing to learn). Thanks, -- Dan Pauls, broadcasting on ----/ / ---/ / (_) __ __ _ _ _ __ --/ /__ / // \/ // /_/ /\ \/ / -/___//_//_/\_//__,_/ /_/\_\ SuSE 8.1 / KMail 1.4.3