I am dual booting linux and vista. I am using ubuntu to play dvds from my hard drive. However, the dvds are stored in the vista partition. I can access these files, but if I have xbmc scan the library xbmc refuses to play from the vista partition UNLESS I first manually browse to the vista partition through ubuntu. I do not even have to open any file, I simply have to browse to the vista partition (labeled "OS" under "Media" in ubuntu). Of course, I want my media to play without having to manually browse every time ubuntu boots.

I cant import my dvds to my linux partition because of size constraints and because I want to still access my dvds from vista occasionally.

Is there any way to solve this?

Thanks!

I don't use xbmc, so I'm not sure if there's a gotcha to the following scheme...

But in general, the easiest solution is to create a separate NTFS partition for your media files (or get another NTFS formatted drive). Then it can be mounted in both Windows and Ubuntu at bootup.

If you really want to get fancy then get a NAS (Network-Attached-Storage) box. Then it can be accessed by every computer on your network.

In my case, I don't need network access, so I just use an external USB harddrive since it makes it easy to upgrade to new computers. Just unplug the drive and plug it into the new computer. It's a lot easier than having to copy all the data off an partition of an internal drive or having to crack the case, remove the drive and reinstall it in the new case.

IMHO, you're probably in a bind and need to buy another drive because you probably don't have enough free space on your existing drive to create the new partition and even if you do have enough free space, you'll want to do a backup first and the easiest way to do that is with another drive.

Any chance that your initial browse in Ubuntu is mounting your Vista filesystem? I dual boot Windows/Ubuntu on my laptop and it also does not automatically mount the Windows partition. Browsing the Windows partition from my Places menu automatically mounts it for me. If you want this to work without having to browse every time, you just have to add a line to your /etc/fstab to mount the Windows partition when you boot Ubuntu.

Ah, that was it! It was not mounting that partition. Thanks! :)

if you're looking for a diy dedicated network storage; look into FreeNAS. it's driving my 1.5tb raid-5 storage array right now. it is rock solid.