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

[djhbrown]

I don't know about anyone else but I don't appreciate your attitude or condesending comments! You come here for help but have the audacity to make such comments?

Read the guide and you would see that if you're using Edgy that you need to build pmount for this to work. It's possible that building pmount is for external drives as pmount is what mounts external drives but I can't say for sure as I didn't write the guide. So he pmount build step may be neccessary. You apparently didn't read the guide because you ran the config before you even installed the driver. if you re-run ntfs-3g-config and you have an internal drive it should work. Yousudo fdisk -l | grep NTFS wouldn't return anything even after you get this working because linux is case-sensitive so you would need to use

sudo fdisk -l | grep ntfs

linux can by default read your ntfs drive just fine so you wouldn;t lose your stuff as you made some comment to that effect.

you make it sound like we're forcing you to use linux, we're not! If you don't like it than make suggestions NOT RANTS. You'll get no where making comments as you have, now if you write up a thread or contact the developers with some beneficial info than something may occur but commenting like you have is not appreciated nor worth the forums space.

good luck to ya!

this kind of intolerance of newbie frustration is not in the spirit desmond tutu was advocating. of course i didnt read, digest and understand the guide because i dont speak geek. i seem to emeber grep stands for "generalised regular expression parser" but that's about the limit of my poor linuxSpeak.

so, danny boy, as a fellow irishman, what the devil does "build pmount" mean? and how does one do it?

[dannyboy79]

Are you trying to mount an internal NTFS partition, or an external one.

- i dont know what the difference is, but will guess internal means same disk as ubuntu core and external means a different physical disk; if so, its an external one. i decided to keep all my data physically separate from the os after losing it so many times when using ms windows which often hung in such a way i had to reformat the entire disk and not just a partition.

I also noticed that you ran ntfs-config before installing ntfs-3g? That needs to be run after installing ntfs-3g so that it can help configure ntfs-3g.

- aha! perhaps you have put your finger on it. i'm just threshing around in the dark in a foreign language and really appreciate your ubuntu spirit. will try your advice and let you know what happens.

An external NTFS drive means just that, an EXTERNAL DRIVE. Meaning you plugged it in as either Firewire or USB (I have e-sata and it's hotplug didn't work in Dapper and I haven't tried it yet in Fiesty. It may be a bios issue too, not sure). Internal means that it's inside your tower and it's either sata or ide.

Well, let us know if re-running the config did it. It should because when you ran the config before you installed ntfs-3g, it might have applied the ntfs-3g to your fstab but not sure. So by rerunning the config and then pasting the output of

cat /etc/fstab | grep ntfs

we should be able to see if your're using the right driver. good luck.

P.S. I noticed you didn't make any comments or apologize for your behavior or attitude. You don't have anything to say?

[djhbrown]

A little more info is required I am afraid. Are you trying to mount an internal NTFS partition, or an external one. I also noticed that you ran ntfs-config before installing ntfs-3g? That needs to be run after installing ntfs-3g so that it can help configure ntfs-3g.

json: as you have shown a helpful attitude and i see from looking back through the huge number of postings on this thread that you have been through the fire and come out unscathed, would you be so kind as to lead me by the hand through what i have to do? i could experiment a bit, but that bit has taken nearly a whole day so far and i dont have such a high opinion of myself as to imagine i can guess correctly.

i have to install ntfs-3g; i thought i had done it; i actually thought i had done it twice. it was after the second failed attempt to run it that i joined this thread. now, how can i find out whether it is installed? i guess i could try and install it again so will do that. there's bound to be a shorter way but who cares - anything that works will do me.

i have learned so far that "installed" doesnt mean "ready to work", more something like "downloaded" in windowsSpeak. it still has to be "configured".

its all especially puzzling because a debianwise friend - not available at present - was previously able to do it in 10 secs under ubuntu without using nfsconfig3 at all. until ubuntu refused to restart and got thrown out and windows reinstalled and thrown out and and and - phew!

yesterday i decided to divorce windows but the honeymoon with ubuntu is not entirely smooth but i like the ubuntu spirit and am going to stick it out.

[dannyboy79]

json: as you have shown a helpful attitude and i see from looking back through the huge number of postings on this thread that you have been through the fire and come out unscathed, would you be so kind as to lead me by the hand through what i have to do? i could experiment a bit, but that bit has taken nearly a whole day so far and i dont have such a high opinion of myself as to imagine i can guess correctly.

i have to install ntfs-3g; i thought i had done it; i actually thought i had done it twice. it was after the second failed attempt to run it that i joined this thread. now, how can i find out whether it is installed? i guess i could try and install it again so will do that. there's bound to be a shorter way but who cares - anything that works will do me.

i have learned so far that "installed" doesnt mean "ready to work", more something like "downloaded" in windowsSpeak. it still has to be "configured".

its all especially puzzling because a debianwise friend - not available at present - was previously able to do it in 10 secs under ubuntu without using nfsconfig3 at all. until ubuntu refused to restart and got thrown out and windows reinstalled and thrown out and and and - phew!

yesterday i decided to divorce windows but the honeymoon with ubuntu is not entirely smooth but i like the ubuntu spirit and am going to stick it out.

please show me the output from these commands and we can see if you have it installed correctly.

sudo aptitude show ntfs-3g

sudo aptitude show ntfs-config

I am guessing that you don't have ntfs-config installed because I say your previous RANT, which stated, "sudo apt-get install ntfs-config
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package ntfs-config" which means you didn't do an update before you tried to install it therefore it couldn't find. If it's not installed, then simply run

sudo aptitude install ntfs-config

then what happens when you enter

sudo ntfs-config

and you should be set! It's very disapppointing that you're not going to own up and take responsibility for your completely unneccessary rant. good luck to you.

[jatanr]

worked like a charm! I used the automatic install option. Thanks a lot! I had been looking for this for a long long time!

[dannyboy79]

are you using fiesty and are you using an exernal device? also, what do you mean you used the auto install option? thanks for any info you can provide.

[djhbrown]

A little more info is required I am afraid. Are you trying to mount an internal NTFS partition, or an external one. I also noticed that you ran ntfs-config before installing ntfs-3g? That needs to be run after installing ntfs-3g so that it can help configure ntfs-3g.

hi json, since asking you to lead me by the hand, i phoned my debian friend and he showed me that all i needed to do was manually add one line to fstab. but thanks again for your spirit of ubuntu.

[myke]

I have one very small (but pertinent question) that I need to know real quick. Is the source url been updated from edgy to feisty yet? I upgraded to Feisty right after it's release and the only url on my sources list that still has edgy noted as the distribution is for the ntfs-3g repository. I didn't know if it had been updated or not. I've left it alone as of now and still have my ntfs partition being mounted/read/write fine (though I did have to do a re-install after the feisty upgrade) so I'm not in any imminent danger of things breaking I don't think. But I figured since Feisty had been out a while, the source list might have been updated and I might need to update my repositories to reflect it so I'd get the proper upgrades for my feisty install.

EDIT: Apparantly, I didn't search hard enough for this answer. I discovered (I think it was in the wiki) that ntfs-3g has been automatically added to the universe repositories. So I deleted the edgy ntfs-3g source url in my respositories list but still have access to all upgrades as they're in the main repositories now via the universe section. Good news for me & perhaps anyone else who hadn't caught on to this fact.

[dannyboy79]

this kind of intolerance of newbie frustration is not in the spirit desmond tutu was advocating.

this has nothing to do with intolerance to newbie's. this has to do with you making unneccessary comments and at the same time asking people for help!! Here are some perfect threads for you to read about newbies who want to RANT about, "why isn't this default, why doesn't this work, why can't it be easier, don't you know so many of us are coming from linux". We've all heard it over and over.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...21&postcount=1
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...13&postcount=2

of course i didnt read, digest and understand the guide because i dont speak geek. i seem to emeber grep stands for "generalised regular expression parser" but that's about the limit of my poor linuxSpeak.

you didn't READ the guide? What in the world would people post guides for if people were just going to come to the thread and ask a question immediately. there'd be no point in the author wasting his time to write up the guide, he would just post a thread that said, "I know how to do this, post a question". Which is a complete waste of time and you're better off using IRC, you'll get your answer way faster. Why don't you show some cortesy to Givre and read his guide. In no way shape or form is it in "geek speak" and again you're making rude and unneccessary comments! If you play football am I automatically suppose to call you a jock, and assume that you don't know how to add 2 + 2? Therefore why would you assume that the guide is written in "geek speak" when you didn't even read it?

so, danny boy, as a fellow irishman, what the devil does "build pmount" mean? and how does one do it?

I am pretty much German and if you want to know what pmount means, read the man pages within your install. Open a terminal and type in "man pmount" and read it and learn something. As far as build, that's just anopther term used for compiling something from source. If you want to know what compiling something is than gogle it. You should reallly read a beginners guide to linux, you'd have a much more pleasent experience with linux and you would be so dependent on others.

I am glad that you got it working and I hope you actually read the links that I posted so you don't make the same mistakes again that you made here with your first couple of posts.

[Superairhead]

I don't know if there is any relevance, but in Kubuntu having installed ntfs-3g and ntfs-config etc. I ran ntfs-config once and then went to </media/Data> (not as root, but as normal user) Data being my external ntfs drive connected via usb. I selected my drive and then ran the properties dialog and under the <Mounting Tab> unchecked <Mount as user>. Worked right away.