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Linux is able to read Windows partitions by mounting them onto the filesystem.

Simply
mkdir /mnt/windows mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows

where hda1 is the first partition on the primary hard disk (this is usually correct)

mount(8) should automagically discover the partition type if it is fat32, but if it doesn't you can add -t vfat to the mount command.

The same goes for NTFS drives, using -t ntfs instead. RedHat linux doesn't have NTFS drivers built into the kernel, but you can add it yourself if you need to read Windows XP/2000/NT4 drives.
http://linuxexperience.com/tutorials/redhatntfs.php

To make it easier, you can add a line to /etc/fstab to let you mount the partition on bootup, or just by simply typing

mount /mnt/windows

These instructions allow you to have read/write access to your windows drive as a normal user.
WARNING: it is a BadThing? to write to an NTFS drive from in linux. Chances are you will lose your Windows install (which isn't always a bad thing :) Don't follow these instructions if you run an NTFS drive.

1. Login as root user

2. Create a new group
  1. groupadd windows
3. Find out what the new ID number for the group is
  1. cat /etc/group
Output will look similiar to this
windows:x:501:
501 here is the new group ID
4. Make your user a member of the new group
  1. usermod -G windows username
Replace username with the name of the user you want to have access
5. Check and see if you are now a member of the windows group
  1. groups username
Output will look like this:

username : username windows

6. Edit /etc/fstab and save the changes
/dev/hda1 /mnt/win vfat auto,gid=501,umask=007 1 2

7. Unmount/remount the drive

  1. umount /mnt/windows
  2. mount /mnt/windows

Login as your regular user and you should have read/write access.


CategoryBeginners