So I have an old Dell computer that used to run windows XP. I have a second hard drive on it that I stored all of my music files on. When a friend tried to reformat (to Windows again) to resolve some bugginess I have since been unable to access the drive.

So my brother-in-law turned me on to Linux, which he is pretty savvy with. He installed Ubuntu on my computer and blam!, there was my second hard drive and all of my files. The only problem is that I cannot access any of them due to some funky file permissions that were established with Windows XP. He tried adjusting the file permissions via his linux savvy commands and nothing worked. His final conclusion was that I should reinstall windows, retrieve the files and then reinstall Linux.

So my question is... is there a way to access my music files within Linux without having to reinstall Windows?

Thanks in advance!

Yours noobly,
jsd222

Have your Linux-savvy brother-in-law explain what "funky file permissions" XP actually established? Alternatively list 0) the contents of the root of your second drive showing directory and file names, ownership and access rights, show us 1) the error message you get when trying to access a directory or file, 2) who the second drive mounts (you or root or automagically) and tell us who you access files on the second drive as (you or root or ?).

could also be that ubuntu does not have the proper NTFS mounting tool that linux would require.

try this link, first one with a fast google search:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=217009

the bit you are really looking for as that thread is from 2006 is this bit:

without the ntfs-config or more likely now ntfs-utils you will not have full read/write access to your WinXP drive.

as unSpawn mentioned above we need much more details to help you solve your problem. copy/paste from the command line the exact code you are using and the output from the computer errors and all.

A normal un-encrypted xp disk should be able to be read in linux.


Depends on the linux distribution. Many have you choose to mount drives as ntfs-3g with extra work. Default setting may only be read.


We don't have enough info to guess much. What linux tells you and what windows says may be different. Also how drives and drive controllers may cause an issue. Some faux raid are real hard to get working.


May have to make a BartsPE disk also.