Can anyone help me auto mount my Windows XP partition?

[dickinsd]

I have followed the instructions at
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/

I can mount my Windows XP partition, and I can get access to all of my files as root, my problem is arrising from trying to get the auto mount to work. I can open my folder for the XP mount, but I can't access any of the files or Folders.
Basically all I can see is a windows full of folders (and some files), the contents of my C: if I where in Windows.

Some more details. I couldn't figure out how to make a symbolic link from the /mnt/winXP folder to my desktop, Fedora was having none of it, so I decided to unmount the Windows partition and create a folder on my desktop and mount again but point to the desktop:

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mount /dev/hda1 /home/me/Desktop/WindowsXP -t ntfs -r -o umask=0222

This worked at the time of 'mounting' as I could browse the Windows files from this directory - great.

I then added the following to my /etc/fstab

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/dev/hda1 /home/me/Desktop/WindowsXP ntfs ro,umask=0222                 0 0

and rebooted, but with only this, I kept getting a message that I did not have the permission to view this directory, so I changed the line to include uid=me

Which brings me to where I am now, I can click on WindowsXP and get access to it, but only access to look at the first level of folders, I can not open any other folders, and I can not open any of the files.

Any ideas?

Dave

[dickinsd]

I really need to try everything that is going through my head before I ask questions...

a simple inclusion of gid=500 seems to have solved the problem...

Sorry

Dave

[ZiaTioN]

I use a slightly diffeent approach.

mount -t smbfs -o username=User,password="" //192.168.0.102/D /mnt/HECKYL_D

This is the command I put in my /etc/rc.d/rc.locl file. It mounts my D drive on my XP box as HECKYL_D under /mnt on my Core 2 box. I have never had the issues you spoke of with htis mount syntax.

[dickinsd]

Oh, that looks like a method of connecting to a shared network drive.

I would never have thought that this would on my machine, I shall have to remember it.

Can I just ask; You provide a Username and password, what is this for?
Does this just 'con' FC into thinking you have permisiion to use the drive?

Thanks

Dave

[Void Main]

You are right Dave, that is a Samba connection between two machines and will not work for you since you are just trying to mount a local hard drive partition. Your /etc/fstab entry in your first message is actually correct, I don't know why you were having problems.

[dickinsd]

Oh,

Thanks for letting me know.

I seem to have all these bizare little problems

Its probably my own fault, as you have seen in other posts, sometimes the fault is completely mine (typo's spring to mind)

But in this case, I just couldn't get it to work with out the addition of gid=500, I am not sure if I could leave uid=me out now, I never tried.

my entry in the /etc/fstab file looks like this (just for any one thats interested.

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/dev/hda1 /home/me/Desktop/WindowsXP ntfs ro,umask=0222,uid=me,gid=500      0 0

I did get the information from the NTFS project page at sourceforge, however unlike some resources, they do not seem to go into much detail as to 'why' you have to do X.

Using the above method, I have access to my NTFS partitition, READ and Execute only, I can not write to the partition.

If I wanted to use the 'My Documents' area of my Windows XP partition to keep all of my files in one place, do I need to change the umask=0222?

I am only asking out of interest, it is pretty rare for me to boot into XP, so although it is handy to get access to my old files, from my XP days, there is a lesser requirement for me to have to write new files there as it is unlikely that I will boot back into XP, unless I am testing something.

Dave

[Void Main]

You will not have write permissions for a few reasons. The "ro" means "read-only", the umask=0222 will give you permissions of 555 (r-xr-xr-x) which is actually what you want. The 3rd reason is that if you do set it up to give you write permissions you will not be able to write to it like you want to write to it since it is NTFS. You will not be able to copy new files to your NTFS partition from Linux, you will only be able to modify existing files and only if you don't make the size larger than it already is (not very useful unless you are just trying to hack the admin password out of the SAM files). If you want to be able to write to a partition from both Win and Linux then you should create a FAT32 partition to use for data/files to be exchanged between OSs. This problem is not the fault of Linux but the fault of Microsoft not documenting the details of NTFS. It is proprietary and they want it kept secret.

[dickinsd]

Thanks for the insight Void.

Typical MS and their wish to control EVERY thing

Like I said I am not 'too' bothered, its nice to have access to all those files, a good few GB of My docs, but there is nothing I don't have backed up anyway, so no biggie.

Cheerz

Dave

PS: In my 'younger' days... working for the 'national' telephone comany in the UK in a dead end job where no one cared about the staff etc (blah, blah, blah) I remember using some small Linux Distro, it fitted on a single floppy disk and allowed me to edit the local SAM password on NT so that I could do a little more with my time in that horrible job.
Actually I remember this one time I took my laptop, whipped the patch cable from the machine next to mine, they had NO internel network security so I spent the evening downloading MP3's etc with their uber fast internet connection..
I know its not big and its not clever, but it made me feel better