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Accessing Windows Files from Linux
 Accessing Windows Files from Linux
This article is an extract from Rais' Linux book
Linux for the Rest of Us 2nd Ed..
If you are a beginning Linux user and need more help,then please review our
Full List of Beginner Help Articles.
Before you
can Use it, you need to Mount It
When
you install Linux on a system with an existing operating system
like Microsoft Windows™ it is easy to make those files
and directories available under Linux. Often installations of
Linux even auto-mount certain things like floppy drives, cd-roms,
etc. for you. However, it is often common for your Windows disk/partition
not to be automatically mounted for use.
To be able to get
access to your Windows drive/partition under Linux you will need
to perform two steps.
1) Create a directory under
Linux that will link to your Windows drive/partition
at the prompt type (only do this once): mkdir /mnt/win
2) Then mount your Windows
drive and link it to this new directory under Linux at the prompt type exactly:
mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/win
NOTE:
If you are using Windows NT, 2000, 2003, or XP you need to instead use this command:
mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/win
HOWEVER, NOTICE that for those mounting a Windows NT File System it is
possible to corrupt the NTFS when writing to it from Linux. Therefore most of the time
the mount will only mount the Windows drive as read only!
3) Now try changing
directories to your Windows drive/partition by typing
at the prompt: cd /mnt/win and then typing: ls -all
Notice that the
actual disk or partition information in this example is /dev/hda1. This is usually
the case if you have installed Linux onto a system with existing
Windows. The hda1 refers to the first partition of your master (1st)
hard drive. However, in some cases you may be using a system
where Linux is on the hda1 and your Windows drive is actually
something different. If you have an error, check what drives and
partitions are already mounted by simply typing the
command: mount
If you get the Error Message "Filesystem Unsupported" your Linux installation may not
have included the needed NTFS (NT, Win 2000, WinXP) driver. This requires either a reinstall or Kernel compile.
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