Software packages needed to see Windows partitions?

[evolving_monkey]

I am new to Ubuntu / Kubuntu and the community so I would like to start off by saying hello all and thank you, in advance, for all of the knowledge I will try to suck from your brains. My exposure to Linux has been very limited but hopefully I will soon be able to contribute myself.

Now to the question.
I searched for a solution to this but the answer I found was over my head.
I have noticed that Ubuntu loads with the ability to see Windows partitions.

My question is this. If I add the Ubuntu desktop will the packages needed to view windows partitions be automatically added or can I just add specific packages to get the same result.

Thanks for your time.

[claydoh]

Re: Software packages needed to see Windows partitions?

you should be able to view windows partitions no matter which flavor you use, unless something is somehow mis-detected or misconfigured, so it is very likely that if you can't view them via Kubuntu, ubuntu won't either as that capability is not (necessarily) related to which desktop you are using.

Perhaps a bit more info on your question?

[evolving_monkey]

Re: Software packages needed to see Windows partitions?

I have loaded Ubuntu a few times on this computer and it sees the ms partitions everytime. Kununtu does not. At least that hes been my experience. There is a post where someone else had the same problem. A solition was posted that said Kubuntu would not see them and that you ad to add them. A brief explanantion was given (over my head) and that was it. I unfortunately did not save the link. I will look for it and post it if I can find it again.

[SheeEttin]

Re: Software packages needed to see Windows partitions?

You should be able to see them fine, but that depends on the filesystem

Is the partition FAT32 or NTFS? If it's NTFS, you'll want the ntfs-3g things. Look in your favorite package manager (e.g. Adept).

[evolving_monkey]

Re: Software packages needed to see Windows partitions?

Here is what I have so far. I reinstalled Ubuntu.Once installed I could see the partitions but could only write to the fat32 partition and not the NTFS. I did install ntfs-3g. I looked at the ntfs partition properties in Ubuntu. The permissions say read only and that the file belongs to root. I can not make any changes because it does not belong to me. All fields are greyed out.

On previous loads of Ubuntu I had no problem writing to the ntfs partition. The only thing that has really changed since the time I could read/write is that I used Partition Commander 10 Pro to setup the partitions when I installed Kubuntu. I also shrunk the XP partion from around 50gigs to around 40gigs. I left some unused space (22gigs) at the end and told kubuntu to install to that (same with Ubuntu previously). As a possible fix i deleted the partitions again and reformed them with windows XP install CD. I then reinstalled Ubuntu but it didn't seem to make a difference.

This time I also installed kubuntu-desktop so I can switch back and forth.


I would love to post the contents of my fstab but I am not sure what that is or how to get to it. Let me look into what that is and how to do it and I'll post back.