Install MAKEDEV by running the following commands:
sed "s/# 9/9/" MAKEDEV >/dev/MAKEDEV &&
chmod 754 /dev/MAKEDEV
Create the device files by running the following commands:
cd /dev &&
./MAKEDEV -v generic
The "generic" parameter passed to the MAKEDEV script doesn't create all the devices you might need, such as audio devices, hdc, hdd and ohters. If you seem to be missing something tell MAKEDEV to create it. To create hdc replace generic with hdc. You can also add hdc to generic, so you would execute ./MAKEDEV -v generic hdc to create the generic set of devices files, plus the files you need to be able to access hdc (and hdc1, hdc2, etc)
Please note that this script dates back from 1997 and therefore can be outdated and not support newer hardware. If you need device files which aren't known by this script please read the Documentation/devices.txt file in a Linux source tree. This file lists all the major and minor numbers for all the device files that the kernel knows about. With this list you can create such device files yourself. See the mknod man page for more information on how to make device files yourself.
sed "s/# 9/9/" MAKEDEV >/dev/MAKEDEV: By default the Makedev script only creates the hda1-hda8 and hdb1-hdb8 devices. By replacing "# 9" by "9"'s in the MAKEDEV script, it will create hda1-hda20, hdb1-hdb20 and possible others (like hdc and hdd)
chmod 754 /dev/MAKEDEV: This sets the permissions of the MAKEDEV script to mode 754 which makes it executable only for owner and group and readable by everybody.
The MAKEDEV package contains the MAKEDEV script.
MAKEDEV is a script that can aid you in creating the necesarry static device files that usually reside in the /dev directory.