Hello Jim!
> i currently have my root filesystem on sd2a, but i cannot seem to
> get 
> sd1a recognized as swap space.  the external drive is clearly physically 
> connected, as it is read on boot.
>

Don't know exactly, but sdxa is allways the root-partition, and sdxb
is for swap.
Think your problem will be solved if you try to mount the swap with
/dev/sd1b.
May someone correct me if i'm wrong.
 
> i know that swap is initially looked for on the same drive as the system, 
> but when i try to swapon sd1a, either though /etc/fstab or manually, i 
> get a "device not configured" error

Bye,
	Christoph

Christoph Ewering         eweri@uni-paderborn.de
Husarenstrasse 48         Fon: 05254 12555
33104 Paderborn           www.uni-paderborn.de/Admin/eweri/