hi,

is there a way to transfer files in windows to linux via one OS operating inside the other on my dual boot machine, as i have windows files that need reading inside linux, but i dont want to burn cd's every time!

thanks

andy

Just mount a vfat partition that can be used for data in both systems.

It is best not to mount your windows drive incase you corrupt any system files. Also if it is NTFS - the linux NTFS support is still not perfect and should really ony be used for reading from an NTFS drive.

Yes, you can. From Linux, you can usually mount the other partition (if you're using RedHat and NTFS you need to download extra modules) .

Let's say you've got Windows (FAT32) partition - /dev/hda1. To mount it, create /mnt/windows (command: 'mkdir /mnt/windows') directory (or similar) and run
mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows
Now you can access your Windows files in /mnt/windows.

if you want to automount it provided that /mnt/windows exists, edit your fstab and put this line:

/dev/hdx /mnt/windows umask=222 0 0

this gives you read only access to the drive...

if you want full write acces change to: umask=000

if you want root only to have full write acces change to: umask=022

The best way I know is to go /mnt/windows/...wherever. If not mounted, you probably can mount it yourself. It should be one of your hard disk entries under /dev. (maybe hda3 or something). It comes mounted on every Linux installation I've seen. You don't even have to copy it to your linux partition to use it!

so could i mount a partition of windows and copy files from one to the other and vice versa without corrupting anything on either partition?

yes, just search this site for a huge amount of information on this.

I would only do this with a fat windows fs. If you use NTFS then I would mount it as read only as linux ntfs support is still not quite stable.

but how do u know which hda is windows on?

If you installed Windows first most likely it is on hda1, which would be your 1st partiton. When you look under Windows explorer or some similar Windows based tool do you see any other letters besides C. If not then Windows is probably only using one partiton.

For another clue of what is using which partiton try typing df or possibly typing mount without any extra parameters. That will show what is currently mounted as what under Linux. I have never had anything bad happen when I used the mount command and guessed wrong about what is where, it would just fail to mount the partition. I tend to think there probably is not much danger in making wrong guess.

Using fdisk would probably also give you that information about all the partitons. I do not use fdisk very often and would need to look up how to use it, so I will skip that option. By the way what version of Windows do you have. If it is Win 95, 98 or ME Windows would be on a FAT 32 or possibly a FAT 16 partiton. If you have Win NT 4.0, WIN 2000 or Win XP Windows could be on a NTFS or FAT partiton.

"fdisk -l" should give you the drive layouts. Look for one that is using ntfs or fat.

and

df -h

would do the same job

I haven't had trouble out of NTFS under Mandrake 9, though I damaged it putting Mandrake in. I could still get to it and work with it just fine.

Since you can dual boot to Windows, do it.

Ok, in Windows now? Open a virtual dos prompt and type fdisk.
It will ask you if you want to enable large disk support. Answer yes.

See any letters other than C? Tell us.
Under file system, does it say fat32 or ntfs?
Note: Windows's fdisk does not recognize Linux partitions. It will see them as empty unpartitioned space. Don't mess with any partitions. Once I deleted a windows partition I didn't need anymore and then all of a sudden Linux didn't boot (no kernel found) so be careful. All you want to do now is chhoice 4 - display partition information.

Which windows OS are you running?

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Here's the "works on most computers that have Windows loaded on the first partition of the primary master IDE drive" method.

Bot into linux.
Log on as root.
go to /mnt and create dir 'win' or 'windows' or whatever you wanna call it.
Open a terminal and type the following:
mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/win
navigate to /mnt/win. Do you see all the stuff you have on c: in Windows?

Lectraplayer, you can write to ntfs with no trouble ?