Ok, here's to start...
I've never used linux before, but have always had an interest in it since my dad told me about it (he happens to be an avid Mac user). So, I downloaded Mandrake 10.0, and installed it to dual boot with windows xp on my computer. mandrake installed fine, and I got the settings pretty well down and hooked up to my german dsl modem without a problem. The issue is that I have about 12 gigs of mp3s and mpg videos on a windows partition (drive E: or hda2, depending on which side I'm viewing it from) which I'd like to be able to share between linux and windows. Is there any way to open that drive in linux (installed on hdb2), or shortcut the files into the mandrake desktop (I think my preference is KDE) so that I can listen to my music while I'm tinkering around with linux? Thanks

Ryan

you should add a line in /etc/fstab. two examples :

/dev/hda2 /win-d vfat defaults,users,umask=022 1 0
/dev/hda3 /win-e ntfs ro,user,umask=022 1 0

1 st = fat32 filesyt. ; 2 nd =ntfs; at boot these 2 parts get mounted at /win-d and /win-e

or you can mount it manually with :

mount -t vfat /dev/hda2 /'mountpoint '

egag

This is possible.
Mandrake 10.0 has NTFS read only capability out of the box. You'll find your Windows drive and associated files under /mnt/Windows (if you haven't changed it).
However, you may experience poor sound quality (popping, fragging etc) on your mp3's by playing them directly from your XP partition. Your videos may also lag, and have sound problems.
If your vids are in proprietory file formats (.wmv .mov etc) then you'll have to download the codec package for mplayer before they'll play.

uhmmm, guys...i read ur answers and did it accdg 2 what u guys listed...i modified it a bit as follows:
here's the scenario:
my 2 ntfs partitions are lettered f:\ and g:\ in windows...and using RH9's hardware browser they were identified as /dev/hda7 and /dev/hda8 respectively...so following ur posts i modified it as listed above but when i reboot, linux sez that 'mount f does not exist'(the same with mount g--or something like that)...uhmmmm, help please...

you need to make a directory to mount them to.

then either reboot or do

voila!!

have fun!

linux_terror

yip, that will get you going.........

egag

I had the same problem as this guy!!!
My solution was to make a fat32 partition so that I could have my
windoze and linux read it. In windows I set my "My Documents" folder to the new partition, and in linux I had the drive get mounted into my home directory (though you could have it mount anywhere).

Now i can use any of my files in either operating system.

Older versions of Windows (pre-XP and some Win2k systems) run on the FAT16 and FAT32 filesystems, which linux has really good support for. But XP (and some Win2K systems) uses the NTFS filesystem, which right now linux only has read support for, and even that is not spectacular.

Unfortunately this makes things much harder on newbies who want to dual boot, or even just install (can't resize NTFS partitions).

A lot of people like to use a separate partition to deal with their documents, so that they can change their operating system, without having to backup their data.
Both linux and windows have full read write support for the old school file systems ( like fat 32). So its easy to just have both operating systems use the same partition for your documents. In the mandrake installer you can use the custom partition feature and create a fat 32, as well as ext3. Then your good to go.

P.S. I have had mixed results with Mandrake's ability to resize windows partitions. When are they going to release a full read write NTFS patch?

Umm to my knowledge NTFS write support is available....... Might wanna check this out --> http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/

linux_terror

uhmmm, thanx a lot guys...everything's working perfectly in my other distro which has a newer kernel than RH9...i really need to upgrade my RH9 kernel since after i added the lines and directories in RH9 then rebooted,the kernel just says:
got a little bit frustrated but when i modified /etc/fstab in my other distro(has a 2.6.7-1.437 kernel) it worked perfectly..i even added the / of RH9 by copying some of the lines in my other distro's /etc/fstab...now,i do have another question:
how do i mount my FreeBSD partition? i installed FreeBSD in /dev/hda2 with the ff. partitions present: ad0s2a, ad0s2d, ad0s2e, ad0s2f...need all the help i can get...thanx again guys...