Hey, I'm a very new user and I'm kinda stuck here....

I split my C: drive into some partitions so I could install Mandrake 8.1... That all wen't good. So now, I'm tinkering around with it when I thought "I'd like to listen to some music." Off I go looking for my MP3s. I am SHOCKED to find no windows partition (where all my useful files are kept). Now, maybe I'm not looking hard enough, or maybe it's just an impossibility to access this partition... Either way, it's annoying for me to reboot into Windows2000 just to get at my music (and many other files). Also, I can't find my Linux partition when I'm using Windows. Can anybody help???

That all depends on what the partition type is. Did you format C as NTFS or FAT32. If you formatted as NTFS, you can stop reading - read/write access to NTFS partitions is still very much experimental. If you formatted it as FAT32, read on:

Since you're using Mandy, you should check this first:

Go to the directory /mnt, are there any subdirs like 'win' or 'win_c'? If so, this is your Windows' C drive. If not:

Post the contents of the file /etc/fstab here. This file shows which partitions/devices should be 'mounted' where.

Yeah, it is NTFS, but I managed to get into it with the root login. I created a '/mnt/windows' folder, and added to '/ect/fstab' this line:

/dev/hda1 /mnt/windows auto user, defaults 0 0

So Now I can get into it using root, but when I try with any other users, it says 'could not enter /mnt/windows'. Is this something to do with permissions. It's unnecessary for me to write anything to it... Can anybody help me?

I also carn't read my NTFS partition with other users. Im probaly going to format it to fat soon but its still nice to know. I know it is possible to write to a NTFS partition if you select the option when recompiling the kernel but they recomend running a disk check utility every time you write to it so i think im going to leave it untill it better.

1.
When I had Mandrake, I managed to get read-only access to my Win2000 partition not only as a root, but also as a regular user. After screwing around with fstab file (with no good results) I decided to try out DraX (it is somewhere in the KDE menu). That is a very nice utility, it managed to find my Win2000 partition and mount it. I even didn't have to change permissions or to mount Win partition every time I started Mandrake! Every thing was automatic and IT WORKED JUST FINE! So, THERE IS A WAY TO ACCESS WIN2000 files!

2.
The access is read-only, you can't write or modify win files from linux. But it is all you want for mp3 files anyways...

3.
Actually, it IS possible to have even write access for win files, you can even access your linux files from windows, but you need either good emulator or Samba server. Currently I am trying to figure out how to set up a Samba server.

4.
Yesterday I got rid of the Mandrake, installed Red Hat distro, switched from KDE to Gnome and there I am
I can't find anything like Drax in the Gnome Any good help is greatly appreciated!

Totaly new to Red Hat and to this forum,
Ellie

Who says u cant access windows partitions.I have a win xp and Linux Mandrake partition. The LM partition is NOT acessible thru win XP BUT win Xp is easily acessible . Activitae the Konqueror, spilt the panel into two windows. One have your Home directory , for the other go upwards to /etc and /mnt directories Go into mnt locate your windows mntable directory There will be floppy hdd and cdrom there. Click on the windows dir n viola u can acess the 1st hard drive . As a matter of fact I have my XMMM player load its mp3 files from the 1st partition. Try it and best of luck

Who says u cant access windows partitions.I have a win xp and Linux Mandrake partition. The LM partition is NOT acessible thru win XP BUT win Xp is easily acessible . Activate the Konqueror, spilt the panel into two windows. One have your Home directory , for the other go upwards to /etc and /mnt directories Go into mnt locate your windows mntable directory There will be floppy hdd and cdrom there. Click on the windows dir n viola u can acess the 1st hard drive . As a matter of fact I have my XMMM player load its mp3 files from the 1st partition. Try it and best of luck

Precisely? Who said it? I've re-read this thread a few times now, and I can't actually see anywhere, anyone saying that it can't be done. I originally stated that NTFS access is experimental, which it technically is. Access to VFAT partitions (Fat12, 16 & 32), on the other hand, has been around as long as they have. Oh, and you're wrong. You can access the ext2 partition (and potentially the ext3, but without any journalling information included) from within Windows. There is a program called explore2fs which was originally written for WinNT4, but works a treat under Win9x, which allows you to access your ext2 partitions. You can even write to them, but just as NTFS writing is extremely experimental and potentially dangerous to your data under Linux, so is ext2 writing under Windows.

As for the going into Konqueror, that just access the directory /mnt/windows (or wherever you keep it), which is called a mountpoint.