HOWTO: NTFS with read/write support using ntfs-3g (easy method)

[givré]

Hello people,

Sorry if i wasn't really present those last weeks, i was working on a new project
that took me a lot of time, you can cheek it here : https://launchpad.net/disk-manager/
more to come...

So i'll not reply to every post, but reply to 2 popular question :
- I'll not put the update fuse module howto in the main page cause it's an extra step that is overwritten anyway when update your kernel.
- I'll update ntfs-3g when ntfs-3g-1.411 will be release

[dannyboy79]

Hello people,

Sorry if i wasn't really present those last weeks, i was working on a new project
that took me a lot of time, you can cheek it here : https://launchpad.net/disk-manager/
more to come...

So i'll not reply to every post, but reply to 2 popular question :
- I'll not put the update fuse module howto in the main page cause it's an extra step that is overwritten anyway when update your kernel.
- I'll update ntfs-3g when ntfs-3g-1.411 will be release

What functionality will we be missing if we don't do this step? There are some things that have to be redone with kernel updates, like wireless and video drivers so it's not the end of the world. It's also very easy. You could probably include a little script within your repo for this to be done by simply running the script. Huh, I just thought of that, maybe this will be my first little bash scripting challenge. ANyway, you've done great work with this, keep up ithe great work.

[MOkAONE]

running into a little troube, this is wat happens...

sudo umount /dev/<your partition>

umount: /dev/hdd5: not mounted

if i go to Places > Computer , i can see all 3 partions im triying to mount. but if i double click on them i get a little pop-up

Unable to mount the selected volume.
show more details
mount: only root can mount /dev/sda5 on /media/hdd01

[tech_monkee]

i'm sorry if this has been answered but i have a question that i need put to rest

i upgraded from 6.06--610--7.04 (don't ask, i had major issues with my pc not liking to install anything above 6.06).

so ntfs-3g is there and and i install ntfs-config.

i just want to know how stable it really since i completely moved away from windows now but have been afraid to try and mount my 2 separate hdds that are both ntfs formatted. lots of projects and video editing stuff i did on them that i would not like to lose.

with xp i would share these on my network to stream and work with on different computers. can this be done with ntfs hdds?

one of the options i had [DO NOT ALLOW NETWORK USERS TO CHANGE FILES] meaning i could access the file and copy it from the drive but not delete/rename/move the file.

is all this still possible? sorry again if it's been answered. mostly this is to ease my mind.

[vzent]

Hi everyone,

I am running on Ubuntu Dapper and was just installed ntfs-3g. I am trying to fix a problem in my Windows (my a347bus.sys file is corrupted, a347bus.sys is a file used by Alchohol 120%). What im trying to do is to replace the non-corrupted a347bus.sys on my NTFS partition (Windows XP SP2).

However, when i try to run "gksu ntfs-config", and tick on "Enable write support for internal device" and click ok, i have got the following error:

(ntfs-config:6812): libglade-WARNING **: unknown property `deletable' for class `GtkWindow'

(ntfs-config:6812): libglade-WARNING **: unknown property `deletable' for class `GtkWindow'

Now, i tried the following, i have got another error msg:

root@ubuntu:~# mount /dev/sda1 /media/sda1 -o uid=1000 -t ntfs-3g
$LogFile indicates unclean shutdown (0, 0)
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1': Operation not supported
Mount is denied because NTFS logfile is unclean. Choose one action:
Boot Windows and shutdown it cleanly, or if you have a removable
device then click the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon in the Windows
taskbar notification area before disconnecting it.
Or
Run 'ntfsfix' on Linux unless you have Vista, then mount NTFS with
the 'force' option read-write, or with the 'ro' option read-only.
Or
Mount the NTFS volume with the 'ro' option in read-only mode.

My Windows XP SP2 has corrupted, i cant even go into Safe Mode or Last Known Good Configuration, thus i cant log in and shut down "cleanly". This is why im trying to fix my Windows in Ubuntu. I have also tried using ERD Commander to boot into Windows, but it hangs half way.

However, when i do "mount /dev/sda1 /media/sda1 -o uid=1000 -t ntfs", my NTFS partition can be mounted and i can access the files in Windows tru Linux file browser. Im logged in using my user account (uid=1000).

Please advise, i have totally no clue what i should try now...

Thanks for your help.

[MOkAONE]

running into a little troube, this is wat happens...

sudo umount /dev/<your partition>

umount: /dev/hdd5: not mounted

if i go to Places > Computer , i can see all 3 partions im triying to mount. but if i double click on them i get a little pop-up

Unable to mount the selected volume.
show more details
mount: only root can mount /dev/sda5 on /media/hdd01

FIXED!
..working great now ^_^'

[dannyboy79]

Hi everyone,

I am running on Ubuntu Dapper and was just installed ntfs-3g. I am trying to fix a problem in my Windows (my a347bus.sys file is corrupted, a347bus.sys is a file used by Alchohol 120%). What im trying to do is to replace the non-corrupted a347bus.sys on my NTFS partition (Windows XP SP2).

However, when i try to run "gksu ntfs-config", and tick on "Enable write support for internal device" and click ok, i have got the following error:

(ntfs-config:6812): libglade-WARNING **: unknown property `deletable' for class `GtkWindow'

(ntfs-config:6812): libglade-WARNING **: unknown property `deletable' for class `GtkWindow'

Now, i tried the following, i have got another error msg:

root@ubuntu:~# mount /dev/sda1 /media/sda1 -o uid=1000 -t ntfs-3g
$LogFile indicates unclean shutdown (0, 0)
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1': Operation not supported
Mount is denied because NTFS logfile is unclean. Choose one action:
Boot Windows and shutdown it cleanly, or if you have a removable
device then click the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon in the Windows
taskbar notification area before disconnecting it.
Or
Run 'ntfsfix' on Linux unless you have Vista, then mount NTFS with
the 'force' option read-write, or with the 'ro' option read-only.
Or
Mount the NTFS volume with the 'ro' option in read-only mode.

My Windows XP SP2 has corrupted, i cant even go into Safe Mode or Last Known Good Configuration, thus i cant log in and shut down "cleanly". This is why im trying to fix my Windows in Ubuntu. I have also tried using ERD Commander to boot into Windows, but it hangs half way.

However, when i do "mount /dev/sda1 /media/sda1 -o uid=1000 -t ntfs", my NTFS partition can be mounted and i can access the files in Windows tru Linux file browser. Im logged in using my user account (uid=1000).

Please advise, i have totally no clue what i should try now...

Thanks for your help.

when you mount your windows partition, do you see the ntldr, boot.ini, and the other neccessary files for it to be booted on the main level? what exactly is the error message that you get when you try to boot into your windows installation? what program is giving you the error; grub, the bios or what?

Do you have enough extra space that you could backup you critical info while your windows install is mounted? if so than you definitely should do this as playing around with testdisk and other tools could possibly cause some undesirable results!

first thing you should decide is what tool you'll use to perform this backup function, there's tar, there's partimage, dd, ddrescue, there's dar and many many others. decide which tool and then go fot it, i'll comment on the tar option and a tiny bit about my recent experience with partimage.

TAR option:
mount your winbloz partition where ever, then mount the external drive that will be the location for the backup file (at least same size as the amount taken up on the c drive if you're not using compression. you can easily find out by using the df -h command after you mounted your windows partitoin and it'll give you both the size used, the size remaining and the percentages.), then cd to the mount point of where you mounted your backup drive and then use this command BUT read the note directly below commnad before doing anything!!!

tar cvpzf winxpinstall.tgz /

NOTE: instead of having the "/" at the end, you'll want to put the path to your windows partition that you want to backup. and for heavens sake, make sure you're in the directory that you want to save the archive within, there is a way to specify where you want it backup but I just always cd into the dir. if you created a folder named windows within the /mnt/ dir then your command would be

tar cvpzf winxpinstall.tgz /mnt/windows/

you could try the (i) switch, which will ignore directory checksum errors. if you get worse errors and it can't do it, then you could try ddrescue (in the "extra" repos which will create an image of your partition and not fail due to read errors, it'll just pass over that spot since it can't read it adn continue copying everything into an image.this will bascially take everything within that folder (you entire windows installation) and put it into a tar file which was run thru gzip for compression. when I did this, I didn't use compression as I had the available space. Anytime you can chose to NOT use compression then go for it, as compression can (i am not saying it will for sure, i am merely pointing out that it adds complexity to the process which doesn't need to be added if you have the space to use, why introduce variables. files can get corrupted when compressing.

that'll take a long time if your windows partition has a lot of stuff on it. also, if you know of some folders you don't want backed up, like say maybe you don't really care if windows system files get backed up since you wouldn't mind doing a fresh install (Internet explorer getting slow? ie spyware and adware!!.) and you just wanted to backup everything else. than you would use the --exclude option. so for example if you didn't want to backup C:\windows or C:\Program Files than you would use this command after cd'ing into the backup location:

tar cvpzf winxpinstall.tgz /mnt/windows/ --exclude /mnt/windows/WINDOWS --exclude /mnt/Program\ Files

NOTE: capital and lowercase does matter in linux, so WINDOWS is not the same as Windows!
and that would back up everything located within the linux mount point /mnt/windows/ (which is your win install) but it would NOT backup the folders WINDOWS and Program Files. or say you only wanted to backup your user stuff, that would be:

tar cvpzf winxpinstall.tgz /mnt/windows/Documents\ and\ Settings\yourusrnamehere

what'll happen is that when you want to restore everything cause say you just couldn't get it working without deleting the partitions and reformatting. then first I strongly recommend wiping zeros' to the drive. this will ensure that nothings hanging around anywhere. I have used gparted live cd to delete a ext3 partition, create a new 1 and format it, well I mounted the partition and low and behold there was a lost+found folder within it which basically showed me that it's a fact that repartitioning and formatting does NOT clear all the data away, it merely makes it harder to retrieve, the only way that the original data gets removed is when the location on the disk gets written to with new info, hence why I am suggesting writing zero's to your drive. you can use dban which is on the latest gparted live cd. I love it, it's got everything you would need for this kind of testing of hard drives. it even has partimage if you want to backup the partition instead of the data at the folder level. I however will tell you that I tried to use partimage on a 4.3gb windows 2000 install (ntfs) and it did backup just fine, it even restored just fine but when it came time to boot up windows 2000 pro, grub and ntldr gave drive read failure or something like that. no matter what I did, a full automatic system repair using repair console, fsck, chdisk testdisk, I am guessing that partimage is just not there yet as far as backing up and restoring ntfs (they do inform you that's experimental within a dialog box prior to hitting "ok" but I still wanted to try). I am sure that it'll work fat32. you could always test it out by backing up a small partition and restoring it to a new hard drive asd a test. anyway, sorry so long!

So after you have a trusted backup tucked away safely you can troubleshoot all you want, run testdisk, cfdisk, fdisk, try the windows recoveryt console, like FIXBOOT, or repair the bootsector (here's a great site for trying to fix windows xp boot issues) whatever and it won't matter since you have all your info on a seperate drive. if you rewrite to the master boot record, you'll have to reinstall grub and point it to whereever your grub config files are, ie stage2, menu.lst etc etc. here's a guide for that: (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=210820&page=2)

good luck and let us know how it goes.

[dannyboy79]

FIXED!
..working great now ^_^'

When you reply back to inform us that you got it working it would be way more benficial to inform us HOW you got it working instead of merely saying you got it working. THis way other's have different things to try to see if the fix that worked for you will work for them as well. I am glad you got it working, it's just good to inform everyone how. try to get into this habit when you respond to all threads, that'll help out the community a lot.

[lilnerd]

It's not working for me. I tried it and have it installed. So when i go to Applications...System Tools...NTFS Config Tool and select external device support. And then OK. IT does nothing. Its anoying because im trying to copy a bunch of music so i can put it on my ipod. But my iTunes is on windows so I need this. Hope someone can help
Thanks alot
LilNErd

Scratch that...I found out i was on fat32. So now i reformated to NTFS on WIndows and need to give permissions. Of course i complety removed the NTFS-3g thing i installed. Can someone please help me reintall it.

PS i can put stuff on it i jst cant give permissions.

[vzent]

Thanks for your reply dannyboy79,

when you mount your windows partition, do you see the ntldr, boot.ini, and the other neccessary files for it to be booted on the main level? what exactly is the error message that you get when you try to boot into your windows installation? what program is giving you the error; grub, the bios or what?

Yes, i can see boot.ini, ntldr, NTDETECT.COM and other files like AUTOEXEC.BAT, bar.erm, CONFIG.SYS, hiberfil.sys, IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS. The rest are folders such as "Windows, Program Files, Documents and Settings...etc".

Thanks for sharing how to backup ntfs in Linux using dd, ddrescue, partimage and other good stuff. However, I need to get my laptop fix asap, thus i did the most simple way, copy and paste whatever files i want in my C: to my external drive:, i still have all my data in D: (my data drive).

My exact problem is the a347bus.sys file - When i boot to Windows, it hangs at "Press Esc to cancel loading a347bus.sys", and whethe I press Esc or not it hangs.

I have read some forums about how to solve it...
http://phorums.com.au/archive/index.php/t-104641.html
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/1116703512
http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm

Thus, i came out with few solutions:
1) copy a347bus.sys(non-corrupted) and replace my corrupted a347bus.sys tru Ubuntu, which is why i need ntfs-3g to change the permission to write in my C: (NTFS). Am trying my luck here...

2) some ppl in the forum suggest to delete the registry key, but im not sure can i delete registry key tru Linux ? (I dont think so...)

3) can i do something to GRUB and change the corrupted files ?

4) you mentioned about Windows Recovery console, but i cant even go in, it hangs there when i go choose "1" to go into Windows. How can i run testdisk, cfdisk, fdisk or FIXBOOT ?
When i perform, testdisk, cfdisk, fdisk or FIXBOOT, will it affect my D: drive? (since all the info in D is critical), i will just heck care C Drive now.

Im trying to see what i can do with ntfs-3g, but apparently...no luck...

i really need your expertise. Thanks.