topic Re: Windows drives in Linux in a dual boot system in Operating System - Linux

Windows drives in Linux in a dual boot system

PVR — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 02:40:42 GMT

I have a Dellbox with linux and windows loaded.Normally I work in Linux. I want to access windows drives and files from unix.

Is it possible...? If yes..how?

Assume that I have both Fat32 and NTFS partitions...

Thanks champs in advance....

Re: Windows drives in Linux in a dual boot system

Mark Grant — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 03:47:36 GMT

You simply need to have NTFS and FAT support compiled into your kernel and then mount the partition. Assuming you have your windows drive on the first partition of the first disk you would probably mount it like this

mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt

Assuming you want it on /mnt. You can then access the files as a normal unix system.

Beware NTFS though. Unless you are running the very latest 2.6 kernel you may find that writing to the filesystem causes problems that need to be repaired before you unmount it again.

Re: Windows drives in Linux in a dual boot system

Jerome Henry — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 03:50:37 GMT

Hi,

If it's a fat32, then it's quite easy :
http://www.europe.redhat.com/documentation/rhl9/rhl-gsg-en-9/s1-q-and-a-windows.php3
If it's an NTFS, then basically process is the same, apart from the fact that it's considered as risky to write on it as windows will complain on reboot.
to support NTFS file system, you need to patch your kernel, from here :
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/downloads.html
hth

J

Re: Windows drives in Linux in a dual boot system

Alexander Chuzhoy — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 05:19:22 GMT

you didn't specify the version of linux you have.
With Redhat (and Fedora) fat32 support comes by default
you don't even have to specify the mount type when mounting.
For NTFS you have to add the module to the kernel.This can be done or by downloading the appropriate rpm -for your kenel version or by compiling the kernel by your self.
There's no write support though for ntfs yet.
So you can only mount ntfs as read only.However there's limited read/write support for NTFS 4 (windows NT),but it's not recommened to use it cause it corrupts the file system.

Re: Windows drives in Linux in a dual boot system

Jan Sladky — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 06:08:38 GMT

hi,
on the begining,
fat32(vfat) is accessible for rw, but
NTFS is secure for read only (few moths ago still was), write support is problematic - see on the net for following info

As was mentioned, support in kernel is needed
Check this by:
# cat /boot/config-2.xxx| grep -i ntfs

CONFIG_NTFS_FS=m

(with default installation vfat and ntfs support comes like module)

after that make mount point where fs will be connected:
mkdir /win

and mount the fs:

mount -t vfat /dev/hdax /win

add new entry into fstab for automatic mount in boot process:

/dev/hda1 /win vfat users,gid=users,umask=0002,iocharset=xxx,code=437 0 0

hope this will help you

br Jan

Re: Windows drives in Linux in a dual boot system

tony j. podrasky — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 13:34:42 GMT

On a side note...

You can backup VFAT files with .

You can backup just a file, several files,
a directory, or the entire disk.

I backup an entire windoze 98 disk to tape.

You can then nuke the disk, and (with a little
bit of work) restore from tape.

Works GREAT - and beats the heck out of
the make-believe backup software that is
available for windoze.

regards,
tonyp