Hi everyone, this is my first post. I am very new to linux, just installed mandrake 10.1 over the weekend.

Since I am moving over to linux do I need to re-format my shared drives so that I can access the old windows files?

So things like audio files, spreadsheets, word documents etc are on separate NTFS partitions. Should I re-format these as FAT32 so that they can be seen and shared by both windoze and Linux?

If I can access these files I am more likly to start actually using Linux rather than just hoping into it every so often.


Many thanks in advancefor any help.

This question will probably get some very different responses, as many people do it differently. I have even found the partitions I set up have greatly changed over time. To start, I always have three partitions to my Linux system. One fomatted as swap space, one for my linux system(/), and one for my users(/home). I keep /home on a separate partition from my linux system so I can leave it untouched during installations of newer Mandrake versions.

I always have two partitions aside from the above. One ntfs for Windows XP (for a long time I did not keep one, but if you have people call and ask for help with XP, it is much easier to be able to switch to that so you can walk them through stuff over the phone, rather than trying to remember your way around it by memory). Second I keep a partition I call Archives. This is really unnecassary, but for me it is a second hard drive and is also my backups. Important stuff, gets backed up again on removable media as well. From Linux, you can open all the files from your ntfs partition(spreadsheets, word documents etc), and modify them as you wish. When you go to save them, do it to a linux formatted drive, rather than ntfs. Mp3's can be played from ntfs no problem as you are not changing anything or resaving, just reading them as they play. This is where a fat 32 partition is handy. I used to have my Archive partition as fat32 until I found I no longer used Windoze. Use a fat32 partition for saving documents to that you wish to import to ntfs after altering them in linux. I now keep it as ext3, since I don't use anything in windows, no point having a filesystem that requires defragmenting. Read up on captive ntfs. I am not aware of how well it is developed at this point but it is a project to sort out the writting to ntfs from linux. May be perfected by now, don't know.

Next, The only time I need to switch file between my linux box and windows is when workmates ask for help with windows boxes they have grenaded. For this I download what I need to my linux box and either burn it to cd, dvd or stick it on a usb thumbdrive(vfat), all work between linux and ntfs no problem.

Hopefully, that has given you some info to help decide for yourself what is best for you........rather than cloud the issue.

I have just installed Suse Linux 10 and I have my normal windows XP on another hard drive. Is it possible to view my NTFS formated files on my other disk from linux??

Yes.

...drkstr

You can certainly read all your files stored on NTFS but writing to NTFS is a pain.

I would move all my editable documents to a FAT32 Partition. Then XP and Linux can edit and save the same files in the same location. easy as that.

KC

Hi ,
It is quite possible that u can read an NTFS partition in linux and as mentioned in the above posts it is quite difficult to write to an ntfs partition and i do wonder whether writing to an ntfs is possible at all. Befor u mount u will need to install the correct rpm's follow this link
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/rpm/instructions.html
Hope this helps

Regards,
S.Suresh Stephen.

Reading and writing NTFS system are not a pain any more. You can check out NTFS-3G. I have been using it for quite a long time, and I have not encountered any problem with it. All you have to do is install the fuse library and ntfs-3g then bang, your NTFS file system is like your native partition.