Accessing a Windows Partition | The Red Hat Documentation Team

Question: I have a dual-boot system with Red Hat Linux and Windows 95/98/Me. Is there a way to access my Windows partition while I am running Linux?

You can access another partition on your system (for example, a Windows partition), in two different ways, as discussed in the following sections.

Mounting a Windows Partition Manually

To mount a Windows partition manually (for example, if you only need to access your Windows partition once in a while and don’t want to have Windows mounted every time you boot your system), follow these steps:

First, assume that your Windows partition is on your first IDE hard drive, in the first partition (/dev/hda1).
At a shell prompt, log in as root (type su and then enter the root password).
Create a directory at which the Windows partition will be mounted by typing the following command:
```
mkdir /mnt/windows
```
Before you can access the partition, you will need to mount it at the directory you just created. As root, type the following command at a shell prompt:
```
mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows
```

Mounting a Windows Partition Automatically

To mount a Windows partition upon system boot (for instance, if you want to have access to Windows as though it were another hard drive), follow these steps to modify the /etc/fstab file.

At a shell prompt, log in as root (type su and then enter the root password).
Open the /etc/fstab in a text editor by typing (for example):
```
pico /etc/fstab
```
Add the following on a new line (the /dev/hda1 may vary, but for most users this is correct):
```
/dev/hda1 /mnt/windows vfat auto,owner,users 0 0
```
Press Ctrl-x and then type y for yes when prompted to save the changes. The next time the system is rebooted, the /etc/fstab file will be read and the Windows partition will be automatically mounted in the /mnt/windows directory.

Note
You do not have to reboot your computer to mount the Windows partition. After this line is in your /etc/fstab file, use the command mount /mnt/windows to mount it without rebooting.

To access the partition, type cd /mnt/windows. To navigate through Windows's embedded spaces in their directories, surround the directory in quotation marks, as in ls "Program Files".