Windows can't see vfat partition on Linux box
 

I have a laptop with slackware 9.1 installed. When I used fdisk to create partitions I created a vfat partition so that I could install windows for a dualboot system. My problem is that my windows I want to boot is an iso image on my windows desktop. The laptop only has a CDrom so I can't use my bootdisks I've created for the image. I have successfully networked the laptop and the desktop and from Windows can see my Linux partition but not the vfat partition on the laptop. When I'm in Linux on the laptop I can see the vfat partition and can even read and write files to the partition. Can anyone tell me how I can get my Windows machine to see the vfat partition on the laptop? I've placed the correct files on the vfat partition to install windows but can't run the .exe file from Linux. Any suggestions?

What version of Windows are you trying to Install?

I think the best course of action would be to use a boot CD. When I dual booted my laptop I just popped in the 98 disk an installed normally.

Do you have access to a working Desktop with Windows installed? You could make a simple boot CD with that. Then you could run the files in the Vfat partition.

Post the version of Windows and I will help you find the proper Boot-CD.

The version is windows 2000 server. I have tried to make boot cds in the past but haven't found one that actually boots. If you can give me any ideas that would be great. Thanks

Ok, so from what I understand, you have the install files for Win2k on the vfat partition.

Based on that the simplest method would be to boot from a win98 CD into "Command Prompt with CD-Rom Support". However, Murphy's law tells me that you won't have access to such a disk. Now, I don't have a windows machine handy, but I am going to see me Girlfriend tonight and she does.

I will go through the process and get instructions. Or, I can make an ISO of the disk and send it to you. Do you have access to a burner... well that is a moot point, without it the boot-CD will be hard to make in general eh?

Anyway, I will get one made up and working, more to follow.

P.S. Sorry about the delay in responding, I killed my fstab accidentally.... Debian did not like that. I found out it is most difficult to replace the file when the drive is mounted as read-only lol. I had to dig-up and old Gentoo disk to fix it.

Hey thanks for the tip. I'm getting closer to making this thing work. Here is what I did...

I made a bootable disk on another computer. However when I tried it in the laptop the message was "missing NTLDR". Reason being I tried to format the disk with a windows millenium recovery disk but it would only load on an HP Pavillion. So just before the disk loaded I hit the shift key a bunch of times. It brought up the dos prompt and I was able to run the winnt.exe file from the directory I had placed on the partition using windows. Now I just have to deal with how buggy the windows swerver version is, some files didn't copy properly. Thanks for the ideas.