I'm new.. few question

[AllStarMe9783]

Hey everyone.. After spending 2 days ridding my computer of the Blaster Worm on my Win2k machine, I started thinking about switching to Linux. But not completely. I was thinking about just partitioning one of my hard drives or adding an extra to put Linux on. Now, my question is, would I be able to access files on My windows partition when(and if) i add Linux as a second OS? Like, if i wanted to access an mp3 or and other type of file that I currently have, so both OS's have access to the file? I'm sure there's a simple answer, but I just havent found it yet. Thanks

-Matt

[S.D.Willie]

the answer is yes. you can access files from linux to windows and if you really wanted to mess around, you can get the opposite working. i would suggest a user friendly distro like mandrake or redhat. mandrake control center is great for setting up mounted windows partitions on a network as well as on the same drive.

just partition your drive to have at least a few gigs free and install onto that partition. do some reading up though as you dont want to overwrite your windows partition. or its even better if you have another hard drive to install linux onto for a dual boot.

heres a complete install guide for mandrake 9.1 and heres where you can download mandrake itself

[AllStarMe9783]

Thanks :-) I was just looking at the mandrake web page.

[Xeroid]

Mandrake would be a good choice.

Have a look HERE for instructions on how to burn your ISO to CD (should you decide to download it)

Also have a look HERE for instructions on how to run the MD5 sums on your download (to make sure your download isn't corrupted). There is also a link on that page for a Windows MD5 summer program to do the corruption check with. Nothing worst than banging your head against the wall over a corrupt download.

[crouse]

and welcome to techimo

[Xeroid]

Originally posted by crouse
and welcome to techimo

Yep, welcome aboard!

[originel]

one thing to note: windows can't read linux partitions, so you'll need to set things up so that anything you download in linux is on a neutral or windows partition.

i would recommend setting up three sections to your hard drive, a windows partition, linux partitions, and a files partition. that way neither partition is related to a certain OS and makes sharing between them very easy (also linux can't write to NTFS yet, so you'll need to make it FAT32).

good luck and welcome to TIMO

[Xeroid]

Good point originel. That's the hot setup. WinXP or Win2000 in NTFS, a FAT32 partition to save stuff on, and your Linux partition. That way you can go to the FAT32 partition from either OS and retrieve your files.

Mike

[lynchmob]

Also keep in mind that Redhat doesnt support NTFS out of the box;you have to add support for that yourself.Mandrake and most others do support NTFS,though.
lynch

[nukes]

Don't attempt to mount NTFS drives read write. It can severly screw you over. You stand a VERY REAL CHANCE of loosing everything on your windows drive if you even mount an NTFS partition read write and not have a FULL idea of what you are doing.
Read only is ok though, and RW for Fat 12/16/32 if fine as well.