Reading NTFS

Moof1904 · Feb 23, 2005

I know the external drive HFS/NTFS issue has been posted extensively, but I've encountered a problem that doesn't seem to be addressed in any of the posts.

I have an external 80 gig HD that's been formatted as NTFS by a friend that had a bunch of video files to transfer to my Mac (10.3). I understand that NTFS is read-only on 10.3 and that's the limit of what I'm trying to do. I do not need to write to the volume, only pull this one batch of files off.

When I attach the drive to my Mac, it mounts instantly with no problem. Opening the drive reveals that 59 out of 80 gigs is available, which is about right for the files I know are on there. The strange part is that the drive reads "0 items" and nothing shows up in the drive window.

Can anyone offer thoughts on why the drive would mount properly, show the correct amount of space used, and yet show zero items?

mkrishnan · Feb 23, 2005

If you cd into the root of the volume, after you mount it, and then 'ls -la', do you get the same results (no items)?

Moof1904 · Feb 23, 2005

I'll check

I'll check and see when I get home this evening.

Moof1904 · Feb 23, 2005

Lame

I guess I'm even more lame in Terminal than I thought. The volume name is "New Volume" and I'm having trouble changing to the correct directory. Terminal keeps telling me No such file or directory.

mkrishnan · Feb 23, 2005

You should be able to do this:

> cd /Volumes
> ls

Will give you the names of all mounted volumes -- you should see "Macintosh HD" listed, for instance. You should also see the ext hd. Use its name exactly as it is listed in the Volumes diretory. If it is indeed "New Volume," then you can:

cd "/Volumes/New Volume"
or
cd "New Volume" (if you're already in Volumes)

Notice the quotes. One funny aside, is that if you cd into "Macintosh HD," you get the same as the root directory. So your working directory can eventually be:

/volumes/macintosh hd/volumes/macintos hd/volumes/macintosh hd/.../

Nermal · Feb 23, 2005

If you just type "cd New" then press Tab, it'll autocomplete the rest of the command for you.

mkrishnan · Feb 23, 2005

Nermal said:
If you just type "cd New" then press Tab, it'll autocomplete the rest of the command for you.

Learn something new everyday!

But to clarify, you have to be in the volumes directory first, and it does actually have to start with "New" right?

But I did the same trick with another volume and it worked nicely. Very cool.

angelneo · Feb 23, 2005

mkrishnan said:
Learn something new everyday! But to clarify, you have to be in the volumes directory first, and it does actually have to start with "New" right? But I did the same trick with another volume and it worked nicely. Very cool.

You can use it for guessing commands as well. It will list out the possible permutations if there is more than 1.

mkrishnan · Feb 23, 2005

angelneo said:
You can use it for guessing commands as well. It will list out the possible permutations if there is more than 1.

Oooh, excellent. This way I don't have to remember if the s or the c comes first in fsck.

Okay, I've clearly had waaaaay too much caffeine.

Moof1904 · Feb 24, 2005

I Think It's Showing Zero

total 0
drwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 0 22 Apr 2009 .
drwxrwxrwt 5 root admin 170 24 Feb 07:50 ..

mkrishnan · Feb 24, 2005

Is there a dis-mounting process on the PC? Is it possible that your Mac thinks that the drive is still being accessed by the PC, and therefore refuses to let you access the files, because they are 'in use'?

Moof1904 · Feb 24, 2005

I'll Check

I'll attach the drive to the PC and see if there are any permissions issues. It will be next week before I have access to my friend's PC again.

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Reading NTFS

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