It's something in kernel compile options that I keep missing. My NTFS filesystem on sda1 works perfectly with the default 2.4.33.3 kernel. At first I recompiled to 2.6.16.43. After that I couldn't mount ntfs anymore.

(if i remember correctly)

NTFS support is compiled into the kernel. Today I tried 2.6.20.1, still no gain, same problem. I figure it has something to do with sata drivers. The harddrive itself is Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB (Slack is on the other drive). I hope you have some hints, what options I should look out for.
I've tried mounting both sda1 and sda (as someone suggested somewhere) yet nothing. /proc/filesystems shows that ntfs is available.
Also with the new kernel (I compiled some new SATA options in there that I haven't used before and might cause the following) during boot up when it checks for SCSI it gets a "NEW:" prompt. I can enter whatever there without anything happening, then after about a minute it continues booting. What might that be?

are you mounting from cli or fstab?

please show your fstab entry or your mount command.

mine:double check your ntfs support options, also that the correct SATA modules are compiled in or loaded before trying to mount the ntfs partition.

are there any linux partitions on the same HD? Is your linux HD the same model?

if so can you mount them?

a brute force approach: recompile your kernel with 'auto module loading' enabled. then select every thing SATA that is even close to what you have as modules (except where you are currently booting to). reboot and try and mount the drive. then do lsmod and see what got loaded.

Doesn't matter, same for both

I'm currently in windows, but as I remember it, it's:
I'm only not sure in the last two numbers, but thay shouldn't make a difference anyway. Also 2.4.33.3 loads perfectly with the same fstab.

I mount with
NTFS support is on, SATA modules is what I'm not sure of and what I suspect. Kmod is also on so if the necesarry stuff was in modules, it should still work, but it isn't, everything exept alsa is compiled in.

Linux is fully on hda and it's partitions, windows is on sda1, can mount in 2.4.33.3, can boot, just can't mount in 2.6. Linux hd is not the same model. It's ATA while sda is SATA.

Yup, that's pretty much what I intended on doing. Unfortunately I'm gonna have to call it a night but if I don't get any other suggestions, I'll try it. Thanks for your reply.

I've compiled half of the kernel in modules, still nothing. I think I'm going to put it to a rest for now, I can access my stuff with the 2.4 kernel and pretty soon I'm going to get rid of XP anyway. Just hope that there won't be any problems when I'm finally going to install on that same sda disk. If you have any ideas, let me know, if not, let it be.

if nothing works try using ntfs-3g, worked like a charm for a friend with fc6..

Just for giggles, what do you see with cfdisk while using the 2.6 kernel?

There we go, nothing. It's still some weird sata controller stuff that I missed.

did you compile your own config?

I did, that's the problem.