"previously initialized" refers to including a line, such as the following in /etc/fstab.
/dev/hda2 /windows vfat user,noauto,exec,umask=0,codepage=850,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0 in the above, hda2 is appropriate to my machine. it may not be appropriate to yours. use fdisk, and p from the menu options to see how your hard drive partitions are allocated. in general, hda1 is the boot partition. subsequently numbered partitions (hda#) are data partitions on the first hard drive. partitions on the second drive are numbered hdb#, etc. fstab is read when the machine boots. prior to rebooting, to eventually access files on the windows partition, create a directory named, in this case, /windows, and to access data in that directory, first use the command "mount /windows." then cd or ls, or whatever, to /windows to access the root directory of that partition. then, data on the windows partition can be read and written. this has nothing to do with wine and has only to do with read/write access on the windows partition; i.e. executable programs are not enabled but reading and writing text is. > > "Linux is capable of reading and writing information in the Windows VFAT > > file > > system format. This means that we can access information on the Windows > > partition of the hard drive even when we're running Linux. But to facilitate > > this capability, we'll need to initialize the Windows partition. > > > > So select "mount a previously initialized partition" and create a directory > > name where your Windows partition will be accessed. A name like "/win98" > > or "/windows" will do just fine." > > > > How does this work, is it similar to Wine?
