I have a dual boot system. I have linux on a 80GB HD, and Win XP on a 160GB HD. On the linux drive I set up a fat32 partition so that I would transfer file back and forth between the two OS's because as we all know linux can see a XP drive and XP cant see a linux drive. But I cant get linux to see the fat32. Is there anyway of doing this?

mount -t vfat <drive>

They I tried it and this is what I got:

Usage: mount -V : print version
mount -h : print this help
mount : list mounted filesystems
mount -l : idem, including volume labels
So far the informational part. Next the mounting.
The command is `mount [-t fstype] something somewhere'.
Details found in /etc/fstab may be omitted.
mount -a [-t|-O] ... : mount all stuff from /etc/fstab
mount device : mount device at the known place
mount directory : mount known device here
mount -t type dev dir : ordinary mount command
Note that one does not really mount a device, one mounts
a filesystem (of the given type) found on the device.
One can also mount an already visible directory tree elsewhere:
mount --bind olddir newdir
or move a subtree:
mount --move olddir newdir
A device can be given by name, say /dev/hda1 or /dev/cdrom,
or by label, using -L label or by uuid, using -U uuid .
Other options: [-nfFrsvw] [-o options].
For many more details, say man 8 mount .


I'm not sure what to do form here!?!

for starters, log into your root session otherwise you won't be able to edit the files needed, then you should check which is your fat32 partition. type this in a terminal

fdisk -l

(there's also a GUI way to check it out, depending on your distro you may have something like a hardware browser, kdiskfree, or in mandrake you have harddrake).

There you should see which one your fat32 partition is (/dev/hda1, /dev/hdb3 for example)

Once you've determined that, you can go ahead and mount it

first create a folder on /mnt

mkdir /mnt/winfat (you can choose another name if you want)

then type this on console

mount -t vfat /dev/hda1* mnt/winfat

(hda1* is an example, you should replace it with your partition name, and without the * )
then go to /mnt/winfat and from there you should be able to see your files and folders.

Now if you don't want to have to mount it everytime you reboot, you should edit your /etc/fstab file, add this line

/dev/hda1 /mnt/winfat vfat users,noauto,umask=0

(again replace hda1 with your own partition)

that's it! you should now have access to your fat32 partition everytime you boot up.

post here if you have any doubts or if something goes wrong.

Thanks,

I'm going to try this when I get a change.

Let you know if it works.

Well I got it to work manually.

But when I edited the fstab file with this line:


/dev/hdb1 /mnt/windows_disc vfat users,noauto,umask=0

and it didnt work.

Did I do something wrong?

hmmm, ok sorry it didn't work, I remember mounting a couple fat32 partitions on redhat 9 like 2 weeks ago and it worked, I don't remember the exact line though (I'm a newb mysefl ) but I think this should work:

/dev/hdb1 /mnt/windows_disc vfat noauto,owner,users

let me know

ok just in case that one didn't work, you can try this too:

/dev/hdb1 /mnt/windows_disc vfat defaults,umask=0 0 0

Also I read somewhere that you should leave a blank line at the end of fstab or it'll give you an error, I'm not sure about this but it doesn't hurt to try

This work. Finally, thanks for all the help.

Also would you know how get it to mount on the desktop? I know when I manually mounted the drive its icon appeared on my desktop.