I guess I will start off the reply, then let the experts take ot from there.
 
With Windows 2000, are you running the NTFS filesystem or Fat32?

yup NTFS
that's bad for what I want to do right?
How about disk format if I want to copy the files I need to CD and have the CD recognizable to Linux....can I do that through Windows?
Thanks

There's a thread on this forum with links to som RPMs that will enabled NTFS read support (which is all you'll get on Linux for quite some time) on Red Hat 8:
 
http://www.linuxcompatible.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=131
 
After they're installed, mounting your NTFS partition is as simple as any other partition type:
 

Code:

mount -t ntfs -r -o umask=0222 /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows

 
that assumes /mnt/windows exists on your system. If it doesn't create it with the following command (as root):
 

Code:

mkdir /mnt/windows

Nice instructions! That was what I was not sure about, the exact commands to access/mount the NTFS partition.
 
What I did on my system, to avoid the hassle, was to create a fat32 partition on my drive, so that I could save files there that can be accessed either in Windows or Linux. You can then mount the drive (the newest Linux versions now mount the Windows/Fat32 partitions for you) in Linux. This way you can access (read and write) the partition in either OS.
 
Support "out of the box" in newer versions of Linux is already built in and are able to read CD's created in Windows, so this is another option.
 
So, if you insert a CD that was created in Windows, either Linux will auto open the CD, or it will recognize the CD when you click on your CD icon on the desktop.