Accessing Windows NTFS partition from Ubuntu 11.04 dual boot

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Just getting around to trying Ubuntu Natty & for sake of expediency installed it “inside” existing Win XP SP3, all of which is working fine; dual boots OK and both XP and Ubuntu work normally.

However I can’t figure out how to access the XP NTFS partition files and folders from within Ubuntu. Checked the web and everything says it should be available, either as media/sda1 mount point or as /host. Both of those exist in the Ubuntu file structure, but show as empty.

Likely I am missing something obvious, but have not spotted it.

I did install the pysdm storage device manager while attempting to get the ntfs volume to mount but seems to make no difference.

Any guidance greatly appreciated.

Jock

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Figured it out. By playing around with /etc/fstab as described here:http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/fstab.html
I discovered there was a problem with a USB hard drive connected to the system. After editing fstab (and getting it wrong) it caused an error when mounting volumes at boot time, but then gave a ‘M’anual option which opened a command window so the process was visible which revealed a problem identifying devices on the USB bus.

Connected a different USB drive, fixed fstab and now the ntfs partition is mounting at host and the good USB drive at mediasdb1.

This also explains why Windows was failing to recognize the USB drive, and giving an unknown device error. Odd that when I first plugged it in with Ubuntu already running it mounted OK, but failed at boot time.

Jock

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