[Samba] How to share WIN partitions from SAMBA (Dual boot) Srvr to WIN clients?

[Malcolm Baldridge]

> Malcolm
> Perhaps I am getting near the end ...)of this process, of my rope, or
> both)

Uh-oh.

> I ensured the fstab reeferenced the NTFS partitions as ro (read only)

Please zip up your /etc/fstab file and email this to me.

> I ensured  my smb.conF to declare the WIN shares as browseable=yes, and
> read only = yes.

You've restarted smbd since changing the smb.conf file?

> Paths are /mnt/hd/c and d, respectively, corresponding to
> two DOS/WIN partitions C: and D: (/dev/hda2 and /dev/hda5)

Both of these are mounted?

Paste the output of

cat /etc/mtab in an email to me.

> I chmod the actual /mnt directory to Octal 555 (r_x), and the
> sub-directories also.

> Both Linux Server and WIN client can access the shares, but there are no
> files there ...ls command returns nothing. That is my problem.

The ls command under which environment? The local Samba server's? (logged in
via SSH or console?)   

Firstly, please verify you can see the files from the SAMBA server locally,
i.e., login to its console or via SSH, and perform an ls /mnt/hd/c and make
sure you see the files there.

It's also possible that the file permissions the ntfs driver is passing back
are too restrictive.

Aha.  This is your problem.  I just peeked at the ntfs section of mount:

Mount options for ntfs:
[...]
   uid=value, gid=value and umask=value
   Set  the  file  permission on the filesystem.  The umask value is given
in octal.  By default, the files are owned by root and not readable by 
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
somebody else.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

In the options section of /etc/fstab for the two NTFS volumes, you will want
the following options:

uid=desired-uid-to-own-the-files,gid=desired-group-number,umask=770

So something like: 

/dev/hda2      /mnt/hd/c    ntfs   ro,uid=1000,gid=100,umask=770  0   0
/dev/hda5      /mnt/hd/d    ntfs   ro,uid=1000,gid=100,umask=770  0   0

Should do the trick.  Replace uid/gid with whatever values you deem
pertinent.  Keep in mind that ntfs permissions will be disregarded for the
most part [from a user/group perspective].

=MB=