Hi all,
using ubuntu 5.04 I can read but not write to Win XP Pro drives. Being totally new to linux I would need step by step info.

Having read answers to similar questions here are more details:

All my harddisks are formatted NTFS.

From other answers it looks as different flavours of linux require different answers. So if ubuntu cannot do the above, any suggestions which can?

Are these drives installed on the computer where you are running Ubuntu ( dual booting ) or are you talking about shared folders. If you mean the former, the support for writing to NTFS filesystem is limited. It would be better to use a common format such as fat32 instead.

i use ubuntu 5.10 so i know what ur going thru. you can't read ntfs partitions with ordinary users. You have to log in as a root user. To do that, go to the GDM options, and from the security tab, check a flag over the "allow root users to log in from the gdm" or something like that. Then go to users options, and change root's password to a one you know. Then log in as root, and type the password you set, and you will be able to read ntfs partitions. I would'nt suggest writing ntfs partitions, because then the mbr might get messed up, and your windows won't start. so this is not so good idea. If you need to transport data from ext2/ext3 linux partitions to windows, use "explore2fs". look it up from google. it allows you to access linux partitions.

Re my last posting: How to set write access to Windows drives

I could not boot WinXP Pro because of a corrupted boot.ini file. Not even Windows Recovery Console and Microsoft Service people on the phone were able to help. I could boot from ubuntu DVD and see the boot.ini file just fine. So if I could have opened it in a text editor in ubuntu that would have been a quick and easy "problem solved".
Looks like you can't win 'em all :-(

Anyway thanks to all who replied........
Ramteid.

Hi,

Generally installing Linux on Windows XP corrupt windows boot loader, you need to install some boot loaded like GRUB. This will remove the need of boot.ini for windows XP ...

and FOR file NTFS files are not writable on Linux , I too face that problem a lot

best of luck