just got finished setting up the dual boot with both windows and ubuntu. i gave windows 10G and linux 12G (2g for swap) and the rest i wanted to use for storing media files that both systems could use. i formatted it in fat32, windows recognizes it, but ubuntu only recognizes the windows drive and its own file system. shoudl i reformat in a different format that both can read, what is that?

You have to set up the mounting in Linux.

Here is the basic drill:
open a terminal, and enter "sudo fdisk -l" This give you the partition IDs. Let's assume that the fat32 partition is /dev/hda3.
"cd /mnt ; ls" to see if a mount point is already setup. If it is, you may be able to mount using "mount mountpointname".
Worst case, you would create a mountpoint with "mkdir", and then:
"mount /dev/hda3 mountpointname"

The have the partition mount automatically, you need to create (or edit) an entry in /etc/fstab.

"man mount" and "man fstab" for more details.

this is what i see, im not sure what you mean by mountpointname

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1275 10241406 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 1276 2491 9767520 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 2492 2734 1951897+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 2735 9729 56187337+ b W95 FAT32

i got to try it again and when i enter the command it asks for a password, but won't let me push any button except enter. which then it says wrong password......

OK, your FAT32 is /dev/sda4

go to /mnt ("cd /mnt"), and then "ls" to view what's there. If there is no obvious directory (AKA mountpoint) to use, then just make a new one---eg myfat"
"mkdir myfat"
then
"mount /dev/sda4 myfat"
"cd myfat"
"ls"

Now you should be looking at the content of the FAT32 partition. Back to my other post for how to make this mount permanent.

NOTE: for "mkdir" and "mount", you need to be root--or use sudo. I personally prefer enabling the root account in Ubuntu, but that's another story.....

If you mean you don't see any output when you enter your password and it appears to be doing nothing, that's what's supposed to happen. The characters you type are being recorded.