hello

I have a computer, which i originally partitioned into c, d, e and f drives. I made them NFTS drives. I installed Windows XP on the c drive.

Today, i stole some space from the f drive, made a new drive with that space and installed fedora core 3 onto that new drive.

I've read around and found out NTFS drives can't be read by linux.

I want to know if there is a way around this, so that i am able to access files from the windows side of my computer.

if not, o well then....

If there is a way to do this, will i be able to use my user files for certain programs, for example in firefox or thunderbird, use the profile folders for them, which are on the windows side of my computer?

while i'm at it, i'll say one last question...
If i had a program like wine or crossover or whatever works, would i be able to run the programs that are installed on windows or would i have to install them again on linux (especially games). (that probably sounds like a stupid question, but i'm not that great with the technical side of computers)

thanx for your help...(greatly appreciated)

Hi,

Check out

http://www.linux-ntfs.org/

I used to use it when I had an Win2k machine with NTFS read worked well there was issues with writing and user ids etc but I was the only user so not a problem.

More exactly you probably want: http://www.linux-ntfs.org/content/view/129/65/

Windows will read and write to NTFS and FAT, but cannot read or write to linux filesystems.

Linux will read and write to itself and FAT and WILL read NTFS. Writing to NTFS is experimental and sketchy.

I believe it may be possible to format NTFS to FAT32 from within some linux utilities, maybe even included in your distro. Google around or check here

-> http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/ntfs.html

Could be wrong, but I don't think you can revert to FAT from NTFS within Windows. If you can, then reformat one of your 'free' partitions as FAT32, then you will be able to 'see' it from both OSs and create a link (icon) to the FAT partition, one in your /home folder in linux and one in your My Docs in Windows. If not you may have to use a third party partition tool or reformat and reinstall Windows first and create a FAT partition during installation. If you want to have access to files from either OS, place them here. (.wav files, mp3, OpenOffice docs, Word docs, etc.)

I do not advise trying to create a shared 'home' partition between Windows and linux in the "I'll put the Windows MY Documents folder and the linux /home folder on the same partition" sense. Several people have posed this question. It may be possible technically but can't see how any good would come of it.

good luck