Access windows files with xubuntu

You need to mount the partition.

Open a terminal window and type
sudo mkdir /media/windows
sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /media/windows

/dev/hda1 should be replaced with the actual location of your NTFS partition. sudo fdisk -l should list all the partitions present.
sudo ls -la /media/windows
 
Thanks. That nearly worked, but i had to append it with -force or something. That worked. I managed to rescue alll the photos from the corrupt xp.
 
It might have to do something with NTFS locks. IIRC if an NTFS partition was not cleanly unmounted certain lock files prevent it from being remounted without first letting Windows take a looksee. I suppose the wisdom in this is that if you mount a corrupt filesystem you risk making the problem worse. Either way I'm happy you solved your problem. :)
 
Actually my Ubuntu claimed all my windows drives could not be mounted for that reason. I rebooted to DOSXP and shut down cleanly (again), same error.
So, I rebooted back to DOSXP once again, and used fstool to force the dirty bit off, so the drives would read as clean even if they were not, still no joy. That and it's total refusal to install a working media player (ie, mplayer), has left my Ubuntu cold and unbooted ever since.
 
run a "chkdisk /p" either from within windows or in the recovery console (windows cd needed) and it should clear it.
 
Refusal? What's it doing wrong?

Have you tried VLC as an alternative?

I followed a how-to on ubuntu's forums to install it. The how-to was less than 24 hours old, and yet none of the commands worked because the URLs were invalid. That's like crapness on a truly MS level.
In what way is VLC an alternative to mplayer?
No default keymaps, and doesn't come with mencoder so it's totally useless for recording or ripping stuff.

But if it's kernel was falsifying errors (about the ntfs drives being uncleanly mounted), then I really can't be bothered with it. If I wanted random errors unrelated to whatever is ACTUALLY wrong....I'd use windows ;)
 
run a "chkdisk /p" either from within windows or in the recovery console (windows cd needed) and it should clear it.

fstool sets the flag directly, no need to use chkdsk.

Nothing wrong with the drives (I mean if they WERE badly unmounted, wouldn't xp want to run chkdsk on them), other things can mount them, just not ubuntu.
 
No, it sets the bit to "clean" which means nothing can possibly know even if the FS IS dirty.
Which Proves Ubuntu was lying about why it could not mount them.
You can also use it to force it to dirty.

If it makes you feel any better, I DID run chkdsk on one drive to be sure, it still said it was unmountable.
It's just broken.
 
VLC does come with default keymaps in Ubuntu. I know this for sure since I use them every day. VLC comes with some transcoding abilities, but they're not as powerful as mencoder. mplayer does not come with mencoder, it's a separate package.

What sort of guide is necessary?
sudo apt-get install mplayer mencoder

You might also want the DVD CSS codecs and the windows codecs but those are just about as easy to install as well.

If it's still giving you problems start a thread about it and we'll see if we can work 'em out.
 
VLC does come with default keymaps in Ubuntu. I know this for sure since I use them every day. VLC comes with some transcoding abilities, but they're not as powerful as mencoder. mplayer does not come with mencoder, it's a separate package.

What sort of guide is necessary?
sudo apt-get install mplayer mencoder

You might also want the DVD CSS codecs and the windows codecs but those are just about as easy to install as well.

If it's still giving you problems start a thread about it and we'll see if we can work 'em out.


I was trying to do it from the gui package manager, it did not list either mplayer, OR the w32codec pack, so I searched, found a how-to that was very recent and babbling on about restricted something or other.

I'll try just the way you describe (and I take it I can just add w32codecs to the list), and I shall return, with me own thread if it chokes.

(good to know vlc has keybinds in ubuntu, I'll be stealing .vlc for my Gentoo install ;)
 
you may have to enable certain repositories, extra community ones or something.

the gui tool (synaptic is it?) is still going to reference the same repos as apt-get so if it isn't in one, it's likely not in the other.

That being said mplayer is far superior in my eyes, i prefer it without a gui front end like gmplayer since i play things on another machine with screen but it's just the simplest most elegant solution to playing video files.

I bet googling for a vlc config file would help you set up key bindings in no time
 
you may have to enable certain repositories, extra community ones or something.

the gui tool (synaptic is it?) is still going to reference the same repos as apt-get so if it isn't in one, it's likely not in the other.

That being said mplayer is far superior in my eyes, i prefer it without a gui front end like gmplayer since i play things on another machine with screen but it's just the simplest most elegant solution to playing video files.

I bet googling for a vlc config file would help you set up key bindings in no time


I'll be starting a new thread in a mo.
That's the problem I had, the instructions I used seemed to reference a non-existent repository.
(BTW, googling for a vlc config file got me nowhere at all)

And finally, yes, mplayer, no gui, via ssh from me laptop...pure bliss.
 
No, it sets the bit to "clean" which means nothing can possibly know even if the FS IS dirty.
Which Proves Ubuntu was lying about why it could not mount them.
You can also use it to force it to dirty.

If it makes you feel any better, I DID run chkdsk on one drive to be sure, it still said it was unmountable.
It's just broken.

I recommended running chkdsk /p (/p will run scan on disk even if it does not have dirty flag) so that it actually fixes the problem.
 
You need to enable all the repositories, then add the medibuntu repository for the restricted codecs. The guide should probably have covered that.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, the codecs might also be in the ubuntu-restricted-extras metapackage. You might want to have a look at that. I'd do the legwork myself but I've got to run off to a useless meeting. ;)
 
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