i just installed REDHAT linux 9.....n i m new user of linux with very few knowlidge of operating it...but i m working on it........


i installed linux in a saperate partition i made with the help of PARTITION mAGIC.....before the c-drive....





my problem is that i cant access my windows partitions through linux.......i tried to mount the drives but when i opened "fstab"...it gave the following discription......




LABEL=/ / exe2 defaults 1 1

none / dev/pts devpts g4d=5 mode=620 0 0

none /proc proc defaults 0 0

none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0

/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom udf , iso 9660 noauto,owner kudzu,ro 0 0

/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0





plz ....help me wat should i do....since i cant even see th other 4 partitions of windows...(.c: , d:, e: f in "fstab"

What Windows Version? Do you have a FAT32 or NTFS partition for windows?

Start with man fstab. The first reason why you do not see the partitions is that you have not listed them in the /etc/fstab file, so that Linux does not know to mount them ... nor does it know where, nor what kind of filesystem it might be.

As explained in the aforementioned manual-page, you must create an entry in this file for each partition that you may wish to mount, either at startup or upon-request. You must also be sure that the correct filesystem-type is identified here. Windows-NT variants have two possible filesystems: VFAT and NTFS.

i have windows-XP + SP2......my c: drve is the drive in which i installed windows...
c: NTFS
D: FAT32
E: FAT32
F: FAT32

linux doesn't recognize windows ways of partitioning...so you might have do a little more work to let us know what exact block device/partitions are.

mounting drives manually has nothing do with fstab. fstab is used to automatically mount drives at startup or when you are too lazy and don't want to type a big command everytime you want to mount a partition.

try this command as a super user.

It will show you all the discs/partitions on your system. Paste back the output here...

Oh by the way, NTFS write support is still experimental so you would not want to write on to your ntfs partition unless you want potential data corruption. Writing to FAT32 partition is perfectly safe.

Tux,

after "fdisk -l" below is what i get...........

Device boot--START------END---------BLOCK----------------ID-------SYSTEM

/dev/hda1----1118 -------2729--------13141138+------------7------HPFS/NTFS

/dev/hda2-----2754------ 9729--------56034720--------------f-------win95 ext'd (LBA)

/dev/hda3 ----1------------1117--------8972271---------------83--------linux

/dev/hda5 ----2759-------4441--------13558828+-------------b-----win 95 FAT32

/dev/hda6 -----4442 ------6892-------19687626---------------b------win 95 fat32

/dev/hda7------6893-------6729-------27788171-----b------win 95 fat32




what should i do next.............................plz tell me sir.......

Two questions, one for the poster and one for everybody else, which may not mean anything, but I thought I'd bring it up...

1. Are the fat32 partitions showing up ok in Windows XP? I just noticed they were spread out, and just wanted to be sure they're being recognized. I see no reason they shouldn't be, but I thought I'd ask anyway.

2. For everybody else, I was just noticing that there is no swapfile. I guess maybe if they have enough ram in the system that it isnt' as important and can still run, but still, I would have thought that one would be needed. Or am I missing something?

Oh wait, I see where it should be, in partion 4. I thought it would show that with fdisk as well...maybe its just I've never noticed...or I hope that it's not that the boot record isn't recognizing it? I'm showing my ignorance here, I'm sure.

hda4 is the partiton which contains the logical partitons hda5, 6, and 7. You were right in the first place he has no swap partiton. This is not a problem.

For the OP, did you read `man fstab` from that information and what was provided by `fdisk -l` you should be able to create the appropriate fstab entries and then mount the partiton. I will give you an example:

In fstab add the following entry to mount /dev/hda5 to a folder named /mnt/hda5

This will allow read and write access to the user who mounts it and any user can mount this partition.

Now after creating /mnt/hda5 as root you can issue `mount /mnt/hda5` as the user you normally run under

Howdy, devdas.

Just 2 days ago I was struggling with trying to access my WindowsXP partition, which uses the ntfs format.

A kind soul pointed me to http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net, the project page run by some good folks who have written fixit software known as RPM's to allow the rest of us to see our ntfs files.

From there, I downloaded the correct RPM for my kernel (2.4.18-3) and distro (RH 7.3). It worked the first time - I could read my ntfs files and copy them over into my Linux partition. It was easy as pie.

I'll bet you dollars to donuts that they have a ready-made RPM for use with your kernel and RH 9.0 distro. Just type "uname -r" to find out which kernel you have. Then download the right RPM and follow the instructions.

So much for ntfs. They might be able to point you to a different project page where you can get an RPM to allow you to see your FAT32 files.

Hope this helps.

Many thanks to all who maintain this wonderful website - it saved my hide big time!

It sounds like the basic problem may simply be an error in the mount command you ran, or that the mountpoint you were attempting to mount the partitions to didn't exist, or that the mountpoint did not have the proper permissions. Can you specify the exact mount command you tried to run, along with the corresponding permissions of the mountpoint(s)? -- J.W.