Malwareteks: Forums / BSD/Linux/Solaris/Unix / NTFS-3G and External USB devices.

Forums

Malwareteks :: Forums :: Alternate Operating Systems :: BSD/Linux/Solaris/Unix		<< Previous thread \| Next thread >>
NTFS-3G and External USB devices.


Moderators: ShadowPuterDude, Greg, D3m3nt3d, Brandon, Vmarm, peterparker, siljaline, jholland1964, TurcoLoco, Windsor, JeanInMontana, KZ, RatHat, Jason Amison, MrCharlie

Author

Post

Speedy

Thu Aug 16 2007, 11:31PM

Registered Member #84

Joined: Sat Aug 04 2007, 09:49PM
Location: Seattle, Washington
Posts: 58
Thanked 0 times in 0 posts

I'm running openSuse 10.2 and I've got a 250GB external USB Seagate drive formatted with NTFS. I've installed the latest version of the software to read NTFS and NTFS-3G. I can read the drive but I can't write to it. How do I make it so I can write to this external drive?

ShadowPuterDude

Fri Aug 17 2007, 08:05AM

...the Shadow knows

Registered Member #1

Joined: Thu Apr 27 2006, 04:52PM
Location: Northern NY
Posts: 251
Thanked 12 times in 12 posts

You may need to create a permanent mount point in the FSTAB.

2 examples of NTFS RW mount points are:
/dev/hda2 /mnt/winxp ntfs-3g defaults 0 0

When you reboot, the partion will mount into the folder /mnt/winxp with permissions drwxrwxrwx, i.e with read/write access for everybody, in the style of Microsoft's insecure filesystems.

/dev/hda2 /mnt/winxp ntfs-3g uid=1002,gid=100,umask=0022 0 0

If you want normal Linux-like permissions (rather than Microsoft free-for-all permissions) to apply to the mounted partition, produces permissions drwxr-xr-x on folder /mnt/winxp, for the owner/user with gid=1002, which is the normal situation for a Linux user's home folders.

/dev/hda and mnt/winxp will need to be changed to match that of the drive you are mounting.

"Only those who fail greatly can ever achieve greatly" - Robert F. Kennedy
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional - Consumer Security (2007-2008)
Member - Alliance of Security Analysis Professionals - Since 2006
Linux Registered User # 363218

Speedy

Fri Aug 17 2007, 11:34PM

Registered Member #84

Joined: Sat Aug 04 2007, 09:49PM
Location: Seattle, Washington
Posts: 58
Thanked 0 times in 0 posts

does the mount point created have to be /mnt/winxp or can I call it something different?

[ Edited Fri Aug 17 2007, 11:40PM ]

ShadowPuterDude

Sat Aug 18 2007, 03:04PM

...the Shadow knows

Registered Member #1

Joined: Thu Apr 27 2006, 04:52PM
Location: Northern NY
Posts: 251
Thanked 12 times in 12 posts

The mount point doesn't have to be winxp. It can be anything you want, just not an existing mount point.

Speedy

Sat Aug 18 2007, 08:33PM

Registered Member #84

Joined: Sat Aug 04 2007, 09:49PM
Location: Seattle, Washington
Posts: 58
Thanked 0 times in 0 posts

Thank you once more. I'll try this either tonight or tomorrow and let you know if I'm still having issues.

Speedy

Mon Aug 20 2007, 04:24AM

Registered Member #84

Joined: Sat Aug 04 2007, 09:49PM
Location: Seattle, Washington
Posts: 58
Thanked 0 times in 0 posts

So my fstab file looks like this, but I still can't write to it.

/dev/hda2 /home ext3 acl,user_xattr
/dev/hda3 / ext3 acl,user_xattr
/dev/hda7 swap swap defaults
proc /proc proc defaults
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs noauto
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5
/media/sdf1 /mnt/freeagent ntfs-3g defaults
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
"/etc/fstab" 9L, 711C 9,78

ShadowPuterDude

Mon Aug 20 2007, 08:44AM

...the Shadow knows

Registered Member #1

Joined: Thu Apr 27 2006, 04:52PM
Location: Northern NY
Posts: 251
Thanked 12 times in 12 posts

You have to be root in order to write to the fstab.

Speedy

Tue Aug 21 2007, 02:02AM

Registered Member #84

Joined: Sat Aug 04 2007, 09:49PM
Location: Seattle, Washington
Posts: 58
Thanked 0 times in 0 posts

Well I am root writing to the fstab file, I can't write to the external usb ntfs drive.

Speedy

Tue Aug 21 2007, 02:58AM

Registered Member #84

Joined: Sat Aug 04 2007, 09:49PM
Location: Seattle, Washington
Posts: 58
Thanked 0 times in 0 posts

Check that, now I can't even mount it with root.

/dev/hda2 /home ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/hda3 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/hda7 swap swap defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs noauto 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
/dev/sdf1 /mnt/FreeAgent Drive ntfs-3g defaults 0 0

ShadowPuterDude

Wed Aug 22 2007, 07:21PM

...the Shadow knows

Registered Member #1

Joined: Thu Apr 27 2006, 04:52PM
Location: Northern NY
Posts: 251
Thanked 12 times in 12 posts

try /dev/sdf1 /mnt/FreeAgentDrive ntfs-3g defaults 0 0

Speedy

Thu Aug 23 2007, 02:41AM

Registered Member #84

Joined: Sat Aug 04 2007, 09:49PM
Location: Seattle, Washington
Posts: 58
Thanked 0 times in 0 posts

still nothing.

I tried unmounting it and remounting it using this command:
# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /mnt/mount_point -o -force
I got this message:

$LogFile indicates unclean shutdown (0, 0)
WARNING: Forced mount, reset $LogFile.
WARNING: Forced mount, unclean volume information is ignored.
WARNING: Deficient Linux kernel detected. Some driver features are
not available (swap file on NTFS, boot from NTFS by LILO), and
unmount is not safe unless it's made sure the ntfs-3g process
naturally terminates after calling 'umount'. If you wish this
message to disappear then you should upgrade to at least kernel
version 2.6.20, or request help from your distribution to fix
the kernel problem. The below web page has more information:
http://ntfs-3g.org/support.html#fuse26

Speedy

Thu Aug 23 2007, 02:59AM

Registered Member #84

Joined: Sat Aug 04 2007, 09:49PM
Location: Seattle, Washington
Posts: 58
Thanked 0 times in 0 posts

Kind of a weird solution, but I added the groups Administrators and Everyone then added my user name to it, then forced it to mount and it worked.

ShadowPuterDude

Thu Aug 23 2007, 05:17PM

...the Shadow knows

Registered Member #1

Joined: Thu Apr 27 2006, 04:52PM
Location: Northern NY
Posts: 251
Thanked 12 times in 12 posts

Whatever, it takes to make things work. I always leave all my USB devices as FAT file systems. There are still problems with NTFS support in Linux as you have seen.

Speedy

Fri Aug 24 2007, 12:21AM

Registered Member #84

Joined: Sat Aug 04 2007, 09:49PM
Location: Seattle, Washington
Posts: 58
Thanked 0 times in 0 posts

So I see. This one came preformatted with NTFS and I wasn't sure how nicely FAT would play with a 250GB drive. Thanks for all your help. I'm sure I'm going to be loaded with a new question soon.


Jump: Back to top