I recently installed suse 8.1 on my secondary hdd which is split into 2 partitions; one is ntfs and the other is linux. when linux starts it automatically mounts the ntfs partition of the 2nd hdd but it cannot see the first hdd at all. i have win xp on the first hdd plus other ntfs partitions.

when the pc boots grub starts up [ it boots the 2nd hdd first ] and when i choose windows from the menu it trys to boot from the 2nd hdd which has an ntfs partition but is not bootable.

mind you when i installed linux i unplugged my 1st hdd just in case i screw something up and wipe it clean [ i did it before with red-hat - learned my lesson ] and then i plugged it back in after the install.

partitioner in kde sees the first hdd partitions but it tells me they are not mounted.

how do i fix these problems [ boot from grub to windows and mount 1st hdd]

i got a K7 at 1.4, 512 ram, 1st hdd 40 Gb and 2nd is 80 Gb.

Thanks

You only need to change SuSE configuration. Boot into it. Open a terminal, use su to become root, then run
fdisk /dev/hda
use 'p' to list the partitions (partitions from first hd). Note them down with names like hda1 etc. Then try to mount one of them manually (let's say you have hda1):
mkdir /mnt/win1
mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/win1
Then look into /mnt/win1 directory. One of your Windows partitions shoule be there.
NOTE: If it's not ntfs but fat32, use -t vfat instead of -t ntfs.

To make them mount at boot open /etc/fstab and add a line for every partition from first disk, something like:
/dev/hda1 /mnt/win1 ntfs defaults 0 0

LINUX can read NTFS (with add on module) but writing to it is experimental. I recommend you convert your NTFS partitions to FAT32 using Partition Magic or something similar. Windows XP doesn't have any problems reading and writing FAT32.

Sorry, I don't remember the link that explains how to boot to Windows XP that is using NTFS partitions that was posted a few days ago.

LILO is more stable than GRUB but GRUB can still be used. GRUB may take more work than LILO.

BTW, my brother doesn't have any problems with Windows XP on a 40 gigabyte partition using FAT32.

IMO, NTFS should be used with the computer will be used as a Windows server. FAT32 should be used for home, office, and workstations. Why do people insist on using NTFS for Windows XP?

thanx guys, i got it fixed.
however i don't have acces to them in normal user mode. in root i can go and browse the drives. so i tried to change permission while logged into root and it still won't let me. what am i doing wrong?

also when i try to make grub load the windows from hda1 it won't do it either. [i'm no expert so i'm not using the expert mode instead i'm using the gui one]

Make sure the directory you created to mount the partition has permissions that allow other users to read it. If you need to change them, first unmount the partition, change permissions and mount again.