Dual boot Linux/WIN2K

I am a complete newbie to inux, so please bear with me as I ask some simple(?) questions.

I just installed RH 8.0 as a second OS on a machine with win2K. They are installed on seperate HDD, and I get the boot loader on startup.

The problem I have is in WIN2K. When I open My Computer, it takes a LONG time to refresh, and I can see the Linux drive, but if I try to access it, it freezes explorer.

What causes this? is it incompatibility between the two file systems? How can I fix this. I don't want to access the linux drive from windows, but I would at least like to be able to open explorer without waiting like 3 mins for it to refresh.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

If I was as sexy as I was smart.....I'd still be ugly..DAMN
**Finally made Newbie...HAPPY DANCE..HAPPY DANCE..**

I used ext2 for the file system. I figured out a half-ass solution though. I used partition magic to change the size of my main windows partition (NTFS), and used the extra as a shared partition (FAT).

Starting to figure things out.

I am in the process of installing mandrake 9.1 on an old comp at home, see what its like. And I used ext3 on this one

If I was as sexy as I was smart.....I'd still be ugly..DAMN
**Finally made Newbie...HAPPY DANCE..HAPPY DANCE..**

Maybe I should have been a little more specific in my first post regarding my problem.

I have two seperate hard drives, one is 6GB with WIN2K SP4, and the second is 2GB with RedHat Linux 8.0.

When in WIN2K, when I load windows explorer, it takes a long time to refresh, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3 minutes (Approx). When it does refresh, i can see the linux drive listed, but I cannot access it at all, it freezes explorer. This is OK, because I don't need to be able to access it.

My problem is how slow it is to load into explorer. Even using progs. such as Word, when I try to save a document, it takes forever to open the save as dialog, because it seems to have problems with the fact that there is a HDD with an "unknown" file system on it.

I guess what I want to know is, is there a way to make windows ignore the drive?

I know I have seen a switch that can be installed on the front of the case, and you connect up to 3 hard drives to it, and it lets you switch between hard drives, and when used, you can't even see the other hard drives. Anyone know where I can get one?

I like using linux so far. Its different, but I find its faster that windows, and I had absolutly no problems so far with two different installations (RedHat 8.0 and Mandrake 9.1) with any drivers. But with Windows being slow because of the different file systems, it is becomeing counter-productive.

If anyone has any ideas, it would be greatly appreciated. THG Community is one of the best out there IMHO. Thanks guys...

If I was as sexy as I was smart.....I'd still be ugly..DAMN
**Finally made Newbie...HAPPY DANCE..HAPPY DANCE..**