mount -t vfat /dev/hda2 /mnt/windows -o ro FAT: bogus logical sector size 0 VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev 03:02. mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda2, missing codepage or other error (aren't you trying to mount an extended partition, instead of some logical partition inside?) In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so