Mounting your NTFS partitions and making them readable/writable.

Nov 30, 2006 09:00 GMT  ·  By

Some of the new Linux users are running their machines as dual boot with Windows. Mounting NTFS partitions in Linux as read-only has always been a rather challenging task. Mounting them as with read-write permissions is even harder, not to mention that this feature has been made available since a little while ago. Keep in mind that the support for mounting NTFS partitions with write permissions is still in the early stages and therefore, not perfectly secure. If you decide to give it a try, don't hold me responsible for any damage occurred to your hard-drive and/or to the files on it. You have been warned.

For mounting NTFS partitions we're going to use a small tool called NTFS-3G, which is very powerful but yet, so simple.

Install NTFS write support for Fedora Core 6

- You'll need to be root for this guide. If you're already logged-in as root, skip typing su - - First, install ntfs-3g:

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# su -
# yum -y install ntfs-3g
This will install ntfs-3g, fuse and fuse-libs

- Create a folder to be used as mounting point for NTFS partition:

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# mkdir /mnt/ntfs
- Find out what's the NTFS partition. Type this command (the fdisk option is a small L):
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# fdisk -l
- Look for a line like this
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/dev/hda3 * 14925 17218 18426555 c HTFS/NTFS
/dev/hda3 is your NTFS partition. It could be /dev/sdaX if you have a S-ATA drive.

- Edit /etc/fstab and add this line at the end so that the partition will be mounted at startup: - Remember to use your /device, /dev/hda3 is just an example.

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/dev/hda3 /mnt/ntfs_p ntfs-3g defaults,umask=0 0 0
- Disable SELinux. Edit /etc/selinux/config and change the line:
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SELINUX=restrictive
to

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SELINUX=disabled
or if you're a security paranoid and don't want to fully disable SELinux, change the line to:
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SELINUX=permissive
otherwise, mounting the partitions will fail.

- Reboot and enjoy your NTFS partition in /mnt/ntfs_p

Install NTFS write support for Ubuntu

- Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add the following repositories, which are suitable for you:

If you're running Dapper, add:

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deb http://givre.cabspace.com/ubuntu/ dapper main main-all
deb http://ntfs-3g.sitesweetsite.info/ubuntu/ dapper main main-all
deb http://flomertens.keo.in/ubuntu/ dapper main main-all
If you're running Edgy, add:
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deb http://givre.cabspace.com/ubuntu/ edgy main
deb http://ntfs-3g.sitesweetsite.info/ubuntu/ edgy main
deb http://flomertens.keo.in/ubuntu/ edgy main
- Import the GPG key for these repositories:
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# wget http://flomertens.keo.in/ubuntu/givre_key.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
# wget http://givre.cabspace.com/ubuntu/givre_key.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
- Update the source list:
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# sudo apt-get update
- Install ntfs-3g:
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# sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g
- Determine which is the NTFS partition. Type this command and look for the line ending with HTFS/NTFS. The fdisk option is a small L.
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# fdisk -l
- Create a directory where the NTFS partition will be mounted on:
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# mkdir /media/ntfs_p
- Add the following line to /etc/fstab file:
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/dev/hda3 /media/ntfs_p ntfs-3g defaults,locale=en_US.utf8 0 0
- If you want to change the locale option, type this command to find out which are supported by your system and pick the appropriate one:
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# locale -a
- Save the file and reboot.