Techincally Windows 98 does not and can not accesses the NTFS drive or even FAT32 drives that are shared on the network!
What it does is request services form the computer with those drives installed. It asks what folders and files there are, and asks to download and modify them. The remote system then checks permissions and performs the operations for the client.
The shared drives doesn't even have to be a real drive. It can be a virtual drive that requires 3rd party software, and it can be shared like any other.
It may help to think of it like visiting an FTP site on a Unix server. Your PC doesn't have to be able to work with unix file systems to browse, upload, download, modify files. Nor does it have to have the same permission systems.
"NTFS can read from a FAT32 partition, but FAT32 cannot read from an NTFS partition"
It sounds like you are thinking of NTFS and FAT32 as if they are something other than passive storage.
NTFS and FAT32 are just partion formats. They are just a standard for storing information like *.txt file is a standard for storing text. Just like a simple *.txt file a partion format doesn't contain a single line of code. Its completely passive and can't do anything.
To use a *.txt document you need a word processor that understands that format. To use a NTFS program you need an operating system that NTFS.
Anyway Windows 98 have no problem reading NTFS partitions, you just need to download a free driver.
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/ntfswin98.shtml
You might have to pay if you want a product that lets you read and write to NTFS.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Codesmith on 02/03/04 02:51 AM.</EM></FONT></P>