and yes, it is another nub lost in a sea of insurmoutable script. Ah, my pc refuses to allow me to boot to windows, or dos. I log in as root, open my vi /etc/fstab and it gives me an "example only" and tells me to refer to fstab(5) or mount(1) to see further details. I need to access the real fstab so I can insert script that will allow me to boot to windows. ANyone who can help me would be really appreciated. I need to access the windows drive to recover an essay that I am disinclined, and not likely able to reproduce, for an angry, decidedly not sober english prof.

TO those who rock
I salute you.

fstab doesn't have anything to do with booting.... only mounting disk partitons in linux.

What is your linux distribution and what bootloader are you using (lilo or grub) ... your bootloader is what we want to fix....if you want to boot to windows.

We might be able to mount the windows drive and copy the file off as well ... for that, we can use the mount command...or fstab.