Discussion - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MountingWindowsPartitions

[coffeecat]

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Mo...dowsPartitions

This wiki page dates back to early 2006, was revised regularly until about about the middle of 2008, but has had only a few edits since and has been neglected (except for one minor edit in January this year) for two years now. My view: it needs a fundamental rewrite - or jettisoning. Just for starters, this would be my shopping list of changes:

• A new section near the beginning describing automounting NTFS/FAT32 partitions from the file manager. Why jump straight into configuring /etc/fstab when file manager mounting will be enough for many people? The "Mounting at Boot" section near the end could be brought up and incorporated with a few pros and cons about the use of the file manager or fstab.
• A warning about the potential hazards of mounting and writing to the Windows C: partition, the problems associated with hibernation in Windows 7/8, and leaving system and recovery partitions well alone.
• The misconception about ntfs-3g in Oneiric needs clearing up. (For the record - ntfs-3g does come as standard in Oneiric, but if you unnecessarily install ntfsprogs and don't pay attention to what the package manager is telling you, ntfs-3g will be uninstalled. I believe this is true of Precise as well but this point can be checked.)
• The section on ntfs-config needs to go, or be bracketed in a health warning. Also - a health warning about other GUI config software such as PySDM.
• The section on manual configuration of /etc/fstab needs a lot of attention. The suggested fstab line is not ideal and perhaps a short discussion on the pros and cons of some commonly used mount options would be useful.

Well - just for starters. I'm sure there's a lot else that needs attention.

I'm happy to start work on this but I would appreciate help, even if just comments and suggestions, hence this thread. But first:

Does anyone know if there is already a better wiki page that covers this material? I haven't found one.

As always - this is just for discussion about this wiki page. Requests for support should be posted in support forums.

[coffeecat]

New sections "General Considerations" and "Using the File Manager" added and various health warnings added.

If anyone is unhappy about the wording of either of those two sections, please say so. Everything under the new (temporary) heading "Configuring /etc/fstab" is a bit of a presentational mess, apart from anything else, and I will work on this soon.

I have it in mind to suggest three different basic gets-you-going NTFS /etc/fstab lines for these common situations:

• Workable read-write - probably "defaults,windows_names,locale=en_US.utf8" mount options (with instructions how to find your locale to replace en_US.utf8 ).
• Mount read-only
• Hide NTFS partition so that it doesn't appear in file browser and is inaccessible.

And then refer readers to man pages or other resources such as this forum if they need help with other options. Otherwise it becomes an unwieldy fstab howto. Talking of which....

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Fstab

...hasn't been edited for 18 months. It probably needs looking at too. Any takers?

[coffeecat]

Rewrite mostly done but it still needs constructively critical feedback from others. I've still to add a link for disabling hybrid hibernate/shutdown in Windows 8. This one would do perhaps:

http://www.kapilarya.com/how-to-enab...p-in-windows-8

Also - the section on FAT32 under manually configuring /etc/fstab could do with some improvement.