thanks for the reply,
your assumptions are correct...
i got my RPM from:
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/
followed all the steps... flawless
i can then read fine from the ntfs drive on the linux machine.
on the windows side it's different
if i ping i get response
when i try to conect through mapping a network drive or the start>run i get a dialog box for my samba user access... i'm using only one samba user... and the same password and username for the other share i set up (on the ext3 partition).
start>run \\hostname\share gave an error to the likes of "no network provider accepted the given path"
mapping the drive gives the error: "the drive could not be mapped because no network was found"
if i do a 'net view hostname' from the cmd prompt i can see the ntfs share in the list
i'm going to upgade my samba version (probably where the problem lies)
i'll report back after that
thanks for any help
-chris