HowTo: Automount NTFS Drives

[Joeb454]

Glad it worked

[kansasnoob]

For hot-plugging USB devices ie: pen drives, cameras, etc I've found that installing usbmount or, if prefered, both pmount and hal to be simple and straight forward.

The only advantage of pmount + hal over usbmount is that a desktop icon pops up on the desktop automatically when most devices are plugged in. Of course either can be done using synaptic or apt.

Also I've found ntfsprogs to be invaluable for extended capabilities of working with ntfs partitions. It's also available in the repos.

http://www.linux-ntfs.org/doku.php

Of course the real beauty of Ubuntu is that there are almost always several ways of accomplishing the same goal and it all becomes a matter of personal preference. I love options

[Joeb454]

I'm not sure how well ntfs-config works with External drives - as I've not got any to test it with

Though USB-Mount sounds like a good little app Not sure how it's directly relevant to mounting NTFS drives though

[Sally]

I'm having a similar problem.

I have a Western Digital (My Book) external hard drive that I use for tons of media and doc storage. As of yesterday it was working, no problem. Today I can't see it at all. It was originally formatted on a windows machine and I tried plugging it in to a windows box (I have limited access to it so may not be able to try this again soon) and again, NOTHING.


I've tried a few different things including swapping out the usb cable, unplugging it, restarting ubuntu, etc. No dice. I also tried installing the NTFS Config tool and it doesn't see any drives mounted.

Other usb ports still work -- I can connect my iPod and it is recognized, etc -- so I'm really at a loss here.

Can anyone help?

[Sally]

ETA: Nothing worked, so I put the drive in the freezer for an hour. And now it's back! This doesn't make me feel very secure, though.

Anyone know of a really reliable, tough external hd with a long lifespan?

[Joeb454]

I'd take everything off that drive ASAP if you can

Take it back to the shop if you can still get your money back or a different drive. If not - I can't recommend anything, as I've not currently got an external drive

[449]

Thank you for this post but I am still having problems. With NTFS Config, it goes straight to the third thumbnail, I never see the second. (Using 7.10) Also, I can only select the external option (it's checked), but that should be what I need right? I'm trying to mount an external drive...

I had it removed properly from XP, and it shows up fine there. It doesn't appear to mount in Ubuntu but when I use the Sys Info tool it does show up. And in GPartition, it says it's unallocated?

It's a 250 GB Seagate drive, but it is almost full.. That wouldn't be a problem would it? I asked in the hardware forums last week but received no replies, can anyone help?

Try it through terminal. Here's what I did:

erik@erik-desktop:~$ ntfs-3g
ntfs-3g: No device is specified.
Please type 'ntfs-3g --help' for more information.
erik@erik-desktop:~$ ntfs-3g --help

ntfs-3g 1.2216 external FUSE 27 - Third Generation NTFS Driver

Copyright (C) 2006-2008 Szabolcs Szakacsits
Copyright (C) 2005-2007 Yura Pakhuchiy

Usage:    ntfs-3g <device|image_file> <mount_point> [-o option[,...]]

Options:  ro (read-only mount), force, remove_hiberfile, locale=,
          uid=, gid=, umask=, fmask=, dmask=, streams_interface=.
          Please see the details in the manual.

Example:  ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/win -o force

Ntfs-3g news, support and information:  http://ntfs-3g.org

And this is the command I used to mount it:

ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /media/******* -o force

Now I have a question. How do I save it so I don't have to use the command everytime I want to mount it?

[Sally]

I'd take everything off that drive ASAP if you can

Take it back to the shop if you can still get your money back or a different drive. If not - I can't recommend anything, as I've not currently got an external drive

Yeah, I was only able to see the drive for a short time, now I'm back to not being able to see it under Ubuntu or Windows.

Not sure what to do here. If I let it sit (or re-freeze the damn thing) what's my best bet for getting in long enough to repair it so it's (somewhat) stable so I can try and move those files?

(aaahhhh!)

[medic2000]

"chkdsk /f DRIVE:" on an Windows system.

[charstar]

Thanks kansasnoob. Installing pmount and it worked for me on 8.04. I originaly installed xubuntu and automount was working, then i installed kde desktop and it stoped working, but this fixed it right away.