Multi-boot systems with Linux and Windows are quite common. With the following steps, it is easy to access Windows partitions under Linux.
1. Examine the disk partitions. For example,
sudo fdisk -l
gives the output,
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0x093fba08 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 9311 74790576 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sda2 18456 19457 8048565 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sda3 9312 11622 18563107+ bf Solaris /dev/sda4 11623 18455 54886072+ 5 Extended /dev/sda5 11623 11747 1004031 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda6 11748 12356 4891761 83 Linux /dev/sda7 12357 16004 29302528+ 83 Linux /dev/sda8 16005 18455 19687626 83 Linux
/dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2, here, refer to the Windows’ C and D drives respectively.
2. Create directories for local mount under /media
sudo mkdir /media/C sudo mkdir /media/D
3. Update the /etc/fstab file
Add the following line to /etc/fstab
<disk_partition> <local_mount_point> ntfs rw,nls=utf8,umask=022 0 0
In the above example, the following two lines are added to /etc/fstab,
/dev/sda1 /media/C ntfs rw,nls=utf8,umask=022 0 0 /dev/sda2 /media/D ntfs rw,nls=utf8,umask=022 0 0
4. Reboot the system.
Now the C and D drives should be accessible as /media/C and /media/D respectively.
