I have Windows XP and Linux Mandrake each loaded on to two seperate hard drives. Am I able to access my Windows drive from linux at all? I'm looking to open files in linux, but they are on my windows drive. I have it set up as hda and hdb.

no problem, open a file manager, even Konqueror will do. In the address bar type
/mnt
and you will see your mountable drives. Your Windoze will be there somewhere. Mine is listed as win_c. Just double click on it and you are in. No problem reading stuff on your XP partition, but can cause problems if you try writting to it.

Writing to the NTFS partition is turned off be default anyway, so you shouldn't have too much of a problem...

I think mine's under /mnt/windows


if not.. here is a fun way to do it yourself

first make a directory, maybe under /mnt, maybe no.. i put mine under /mnt..

call it something fun like... windows.. or win.. or whatever you want it to be called

then in console type

ln -s /dev/haX(where X is your windows partition) /path/to/where/you/want/your/windows/mounted

remember, when you mount stuff in linux, you mount the filesystem, basically... not necissacaraly the drive..