How To Use NTFS Drives/Partitions Under Ubuntu Edgy Eft

[rjmusto]

Hi,
Have run through the set-up process for getting an external USB NTFS
drive read/write on Ubuntu.

Fallen into the trap of it not being mountable at the finish. I did
eject it and switch it off, but not unplug it. Maybe that was a mistake.

Anyhow, it won't mount now. Do you know of a fix for this?

Many thanks

[domino]

Are you using ntfs-3g? What message do you get when you try to manually mount the ext drive? Are you sure it's not already mounted in /mnt directory but not visable on your desktop?

[rjmusto]

As far as I know, yes I'm using ntfs-3g. How do I check?

No, the mnt folder is empty.

Trying to mount mannual produces this response:

Failed to mount '/dev/sda1': Operation not supported
Mount is denied because the NTFS journal file is unclean. Choices are:
A) Shutdown Windows properly.
B) Click the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon in the Windows taskbar
notification area before disconnecting the device.
C) Use 'Eject' from Windows Explorer to safely remove the device.
D) If you ran chkdsk previously then boot Windows again which will
automatically initialize the journal.
E) Run 'ntfsfix' on Linux which will reset the NTFS journal.
F) Mount the volume read-only by using the 'ro' mount option.
Error: could not execute pmount

Thanks.

[martinfst]

Why don't you follow the suggestions the mount command gives you? Briefly scanning this thread, ntfsfix might do the trick.

[rjmusto]

Ok, got it to mount read only using pmount.
Ejected, unplugged and plugged back in.
Had to manually mount again - but it still insists its read only, even though I didn't include the ro switch.

Is there a switch for pmount that forces read/write?

[martinfst]

You still need to fix the problem on the filesystem. So either fsck (for Linx/Unix filesystems) or chkdsk (FAT) is required.

[rjmusto]

Have tried fsck, but it returns this error:

fsck 1.39 (29-May-2006)
fsck: fsck.ntfs: not found
fsck: Error 2 while executing fsck.ntfs for /dev/sda1


And for chkdsk it says 'command not found'


Sorry to be a bit of a numpty - still kind of a novice at Linux.....

[martinfst]

Originally Posted by rjmusto

Sorry to be a bit of a numpty - still kind of a novice at Linux.....

No problem, that's why these forums are there to get newbees up 2 speed

Apparently you have created an ntfs filesystem, so you need the 'ntfsfix' command. I think that's not installed by default (you'll notice if you get an obvious error), so you may need to install that using the specifics of your distro.

[domino]

If you run any disk util to fix ntfs under Linux, you will probably have little success. you need to do it in windows or use use a a dos disk with chkdsk compatible to winxp.

Keep in mind that read/write feature can only be mounted with sudo command. Make sure you have the latest version of ntfa-3g from givre's repo or the repo posted on his thread.

Make sure you don't have anything that involves your ext. drive in fstab.

[rjmusto]

Ok, thanks for all that.

May be a while before I get back to you on this........