Ubuntu :: Mounting NTFS Drive After Windows Failure?

I've been working for a while to help a friend re-activate her system after a Windows crash. I tried every way I could to restore Windows, but the system is thoroughly bollixed. The data is still there on the disk, and you can read/write if you boot off of external media. I backed up her data that way.

Details if you need them, but for now suffice it to say that I finally got her up and running by installing Xubuntu Lucid in a dual-boot setup. However Xubuntu isn't automatically recognizing and mounting the NTFS partition the way I would expect it to. I had her run a few commands in the terminal, and here's what she got.

Output from sudo fdisk -l:

Code:
Disk /dev/sda: 82.3 GB, 82348277760 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 10011 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

[Code]....

Ordinarily I'd use mkdir then mount to solve this. But I'd like to check a few things before I go and do that.

First, as I understand it if a Windows instance is not shut down properly it can make it difficult for Linux to mount the partition. The usual solution is simply to reboot Windows and then shut down properly, but that's impossible in this case. Will that affect the mkdir/mount solution?

Second, the fact that /dev/sda1 doesn't even show up in fstab causes me some concern. Would that be a problem for mkdir/mount?

And third, how to I set it up so the NTFS partition mounts automatically?