The weirdness continues...
My default setup does not have much mounted. Just /dev/hdb2 and proc. I really don't want to go unmounting any of those.
I tried using your /dev/hda1 line, switching /dave with /windows and ext2 with vfat, but I still get the same error message. I tried retyping the line different ways (just in case) but still no luck.
Next I decided to try to use the -v switch when mounting to see if I could get any useful information, but only got the same old error message. Next I used both -v and -f and I get the message /dev/hda1 on /windows type vfat (rw)
mount -t vfat gives me that same message. When I umount /dev/hda1 I get that /dev/hda1 is not found and that /windows is not mounted. Doing mount -t vfat from here shows nothing. And yes, /dev/hda1 is detected when Linux boots up.
If nothing else, it looks like I can conclude that the problem is happening during the system call (based on the documentation for -f).
Any other suggestions? I'd rather not make another windows partition, but would leave that as a last resort.
Thanks!