thanks for the quick reply. i gave a shot, and unless I am doing something wrong (which is very possible), still no luck. here is the partition table. it is pretty obvious that hda2 is the incorrect device, but the other ones don't seem to work either.

/dev/hda1 * 1 7649 61440561 7 hpfs/ntfs
/dev/hda2 9665 9729 522112+ f win95 ext'd (lba)
/dev/hda3 7650 7655 48195 83 linux
/dev/hda4 7656 9664 16137292+ 83 linux
/dev/hda5 9665 9729 522081 83 linux swap

I am assuming that I should be using hda4. does this shed any light on the situation?

thanks,
Jeremy