I have dual boot and want to use a terminal in the Windows partition.

Any way I can use the terminal to access the windows partition?

Or can I use the Windows terminal from the Linux?

"use a terminal" is meaningless. Mount the partition - run ls on the mountpoint. Is that what you want ?.

1 members found this post helpful.

How do I do that? The terminal comes up on the Linux Partition and starts at the Home directory ls just lists the home directory on the Linux partition.

You need to mount the other partition, then you should be able to work on the files that are on it, by using the long name to the files, or via a file manager.

But beware, Linux & Windows use different line endings in their editors, & you may get permissions problems.

You may need to install ntfs-3g to be able to write files to your Windows partition.

Check out about mounting partitions online if you aren't sure of what you need to do.
(Or take a look at man mount.)

1 members found this post helpful.

As syg00 says, this question is unclear. But now I see that fatmac has followed up similar to what I was thinking, but I also have some additional thoughts to offer.

When you are booted in Linux, you can "see" the Windows directories, provided that partition is mounted.

Also when you are booted in Linux, the terminal program you run is Linux based and uses Linux commands. You will be able to go to the Windows directory structure in there, providing it is mounted and you know the directory where it is located.

When you are booted in Windows, the terminal program you run is the Windows Command Prompt, which behaves much like the former DOS prompt. You will not be able to see any of the Linux file systems in that case.

You cannot use the Linux terminal from within Windows, however you can install software which emulates the behavior of a Linux terminal, under your Windows OS. On typical program that allows this is called cygwin.

What we really need to hear is what exactly you want to do. What commands you wish to enter and use against files in your Windows directory structure.

Yes I want to remove the Windows password SAM and reinstall one that has no password.
For those who have forgotten the password.

Not sure what would happen if I just deleted the Sam file?

I will also need to chmod the file as it is read only.

I tried to mount the windows partition but it says cannot find /etc/fstab

Any ideas?

Yes, you'd have to specify the mount location where you wish to mount it.

Typically you would also need to use sudo to prefix the mount command.And you'd need to have the ntfs-3g package, as stated by fatmac. <partition-path> is the location where your Windows partition is located, something like /dev/sdb1 but matching the location where it really is on your system. The <mount-directory> is a directory you created to be the mountpoint for the file system.

Please explain exactly what did you try. I mean how did you try to mount that windows partition? Please post exactly the commands you executed and the responses.

It looks like your original question is still unclear, I would like to ask you to explain what do you want to achieve.
Would be nice to give more details on how do you "want to use a terminal in the Windows partition." (what do you mean by that)

sudo mount -t ntfs computer:///Hitachi%20HTS547550A9E384.drive
[sudo] password for user:
mount: computer:///Hitachi%20HTS547550A9E384.drive: can't find in /etc/fstab.
user@user-Extensa-5630:~$

Probably doing everything wrong. I tried to use a directory but it could not find a directory on my linux.

you need to mkdir <mount point> (this is a directory which will be used for that mount
I have no idea what is that computer:///Hitachi%20HTS547550A9E384.drive, probably you need to replace it with something like
/dev/sdb1 or similar. Is this a local or remote disk?

You need to run fdisk -l (that's letter L, lowercase) to get a report on all the partitions in your system, and look for one which is NT file type, to understand where the partition is located.

Did that shows
sudo mount -t ntfs computer:///Hitachi%20HTS547550A9E384.drive
[sudo] password for user:
mount: computer:///Hitachi%20HTS547550A9E384.drive: can't find in /etc/fstab.
user@user-Extensa-5630:~$


Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sda1 * 2048 206847 204800 100M 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 206848 306419711 306212864 146G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 306421758 976771071 670349314 319.7G 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 968531968 976771071 8239104 4G 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 306421760 968531967 662110208 315.7G 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order.




Disk /dev/sdb: 58.6 GiB, 62889394176 bytes, 122830848 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xc29982a3

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type

/dev/sdb1 2048 122830847 122828800 58.6G c W95 FAT32 (LBA)


This is /etc/fstab

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=566bba7f-f3e8-4780-bb20-8d4dae310515 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=24e1bdf5-0601-43e3-a066-b7172191a690 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/disk/by-label/CDROM /mnt/CDROM bootable nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/usb-Generic_Flash_Disk_A5487656-0:0-part1 /mnt/usb-Generic_Flash_Disk_A5487656-0:0-part1 auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/usb-Sunzong_Easy_F_1.0A_ZPG_201702160000000D-0:0 /mnt/usb-Sunzong_Easy_F_1.0A_ZPG_201702160000000D-0:0 auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,noauto,x-gvfs-show 0 0

So It has no NTFS file system so that is weird

and again, please post exactly what did you execute and what was the result.

Did this
sudo mount -t ntfs computer:///Hitachi%20HTS547550A9E384.drive
[sudo] password for user:
mount: computer:///Hitachi%20HTS547550A9E384.drive: can't find in /etc/fstab.
user@user-Extensa-5630:~$

also I used
sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sda2
[sudo] password for user:
mount: /dev/sda2: can't find in /etc/fstab.
user@user-Extensa-5630:~$

No entry in fstab

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=566bba7f-f3e8-4780-bb20-8d4dae310515 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=24e1bdf5-0601-43e3-a066-b7172191a690 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/disk/by-label/CDROM /mnt/CDROM bootable nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/usb-Generic_Flash_Disk_A5487656-0:0-part1 /mnt/usb-Generic_Flash_Disk_A5487656-0:0-part1 auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/usb-Sunzong_Easy_F_1.0A_ZPG_201702160000000D-0:0 /mnt/usb-Sunzong_Easy_F_1.0A_ZPG_201702160000000D-0:0 auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,noauto,x-gvfs-show 0 0