fairly new to linux -
under my devices folder, my windows partition is listed and i can browse through the files, but can't open any, ie: an openoffice file on my windows side is visible but when i attempt to open it with linux it says mnt/hda1/windows/filename . . .does not exist. i've been playing around with samba but can't seem to get it to recognize the windows partition. i've also attempted to mount the partition manually, but it returns that the partition is already mounted.
what should my next step be . . .i'm not opposed to being pointed in the right direction and seeing if i can figure it out . . .

wk>

"When I attempt to open it"

How?

Are you double clicking in a file mananger (probably konqueror in Mandriva)? If you are, see if you can try to open in a terminal with TAB auto-completion. Something like:
oowriter /mnt/hda1/My\ Documents/Cool\ File.odw

Not sure the file extension But hopefully you get my point. Once you type /mnt/hda1/ Start hitting TAB to see what files/directories exist to select/enter. Once you see the file, type part of it's filename, and then hit TAB again until you get the full filename in the prompt, then hit enter.

If you get some error and the file doesn't open, post up that error here or google it to see what pops up.

Cool

okay . . .first, thanks for the advice . . .however . . .

i was double clicking on the file from konqueror - it opened OOo but brought up an error message - directory doesn't exist . .

no attempting to mount from a terminal, i can't seem to get into the appropriate folder - i can get to /mnt/windows/ but i can't change directory into the folder listed as Documents and Settings/ - is this (and please excuse my ignorance) because linux doesn't recognize spaces between the file names? when i tab, it brings up Documents. . . as a valid directory, but when i hit enter it says no such file or directory

how do i account for spaces in file names when i'm changing directories?

thanks for the help . . .
wk>

okay, i figured out how to correctly enter file names with spaces (using \); so i'm thinking that perhaps my issue isn't with samba or file sharing, but perhaps the way that OOo attempts to open the files, ie: when i just downloaded one of my documents from the internet, a file with spaces in the name, OOo gave me 3 error messages, one for each of the words in the file name. so, though i think i've figured out what my problem is, i don't know how to correct it yet. do i need to configure my linux system to recognize spaces in file names (a possibility?) or just OOo? does this all make sense?

again, i appreciate the assistance.
>

The escape character ( \ ) is used to escape spaces or odd characters in a bash environment. This is usually taken care of in a gui though. Anyway, yeah, so:
cd /mnt/windows/Documents\ and\ Settings/

That's the syntax. However, hitting tab after the 'a' in and, should pull up the rest of the directory, then you can hit enter and it *should* drop you in that directory.

HTH

Cool

Heh, you were typing while I was

Try adding quotes around the whole thing:
oowriter "/mnt/windows/Documents and Settings/The Document You Want.osw"

Notice with quotes you don't need escapes.

I definitely think OpenOffice can open files with spaces, so my first guess is an issue with how the file is getting opened or sent (via stdin?) to OpenOffice.

Try creating a new file, an empty document, type a few key phrases into it, save it with spaces, and then try to open it, see what happens.

This is not normal behaviour, you may want to do everything for a bit from the command line to give you verbose output to post up, it may help to diagnose your problem.

Cool