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Guide: Enable native NTFS Read/Write in Snow Leopard

adrianmak said:
I used diskutil gui to unmount all ntfs HDDs and reboot SL but they are still read only.
Click to expand...

If the NTFS volume wasn't cleanly unmounted previously you must cleanly unmount it in Windows (XP, VISTA, 7), it doesn't work when you unmount it in OS X because the NTFS filesystem is then read-only in OS X...

The problem is that OS X has no "fsck_ntfs" to repair problems on the NTFS volume to make it "clean" again, for this you must use Windows.
 
iBlacky said:
If the NTFS volume wasn't cleanly unmounted previously you must cleanly unmount it in Windows (XP, VISTA, 7), it doesn't work when you unmount it in OS X because the NTFS filesystem is then read-only in OS X...

The problem is that OS X has no "fsck_ntfs" to repair problems on the NTFS volume to make it "clean" again, for this you must use Windows.
Click to expand...

I've no concept to unmount ntfs volume in Windows. How do I make it ?
Should I perform unmount all ntfs volume in windows each time before booting to SL ?
 
adrianmak said:
I've no concept to unmount ntfs volume in Windows. How do I make it ?
Should I perform unmount all ntfs volume in windows each time before booting to SL ?
Click to expand...

Okay just to be sure that everything is okay with your OS X installation and the /sbin/mount_ntfs script:

Format a USB stick in Windows (you have to use Windows because OS X can't format NTFS, the "newfs_ntfs" tool is missing as well), safely remove the stick from Windows (the clean unmount is important) and then try to use the USB stick with OS X, when the NTFS filesystem is clean, OS X should mount the NTFS volume read-write (when the script /sbin/mount_ntfs is in place), if this doesn't work (i.e. the USB stick with NTFS is read-only) something else is broken... but if you can mount the USB stick read-write then something doesn't work when you shutdown Windows, e.g. Windows can't safely remove the drives.
 
Just add one thing for someone who needs:


Safe unmount in windows means safe eject, which requires you to eject USB disk by click the eject icon located in the lower right corner of Windows task bar and choose safely remove usb mass storage device
.


Every little helps. :)

P.S. The scripts works very well till now once the safe eject been done.
 

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It WORKS now.

I used chkdsk in Windows and it reported found error on MBR. Then chkdsk with /f parameter and now SL can read/write ntfs partition
 
jakimowicz said:
I wrote a small app to help mounting ntfs volume read/write : http://ntfsmounter.com
Click to expand...


Excellent - thanks....

Just need to remember to 'eject' the volumes when they get mounted on the SL desktop first off...... then click on the found ntfs disk in the ntfsmounter icon, and can copy/paste etc to/from a 200gB external hard drive.

Thankyou....


Coops
 
adrianmak said:
It WORKS now.

I used chkdsk in Windows and it reported found error on MBR. Then chkdsk with /f parameter and now SL can read/write ntfs partition
Click to expand...

Ahh perfect :), this means the problem was really the filesystem which was not "clean".

Ups... saw that I already wrote this, but I can't remove messages...sorry for that...



Btw.

the NTFS driver has (like all other fs drivers) a PList

/System/Library/Filesystems/ntfs.fs/Contents/Info.plist

there you find the parameter

FSMountArguments

and normally it should work when you add "-o rw" as arguments to the "FSMountArguments" parameter to mount NTFS volumes as read-write but the

diskarbitrationd

daemon (and this daemon is responsible for mounting volumes in OS X) ignores the PList completely (no matter if it is NTFS or not), so to modify "/System/Library/Filesystems/ntfs.fs/Contents/Info.plist" is not an option.

Just to complete the NTFS guide :).

applevx said:
Just add one thing for someone who needs:

Safe unmount in windows means safe eject, which requires you to eject USB disk by click the eject icon located in the lower right corner of Windows task bar and choose safely remove usb mass storage device
Click to expand...

Yes that's exactly what I meant :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
After half day using, I experienced that using shell script method is really unstable. SL hang randomly several times (a rainbow circle). I revoked back to original and everything back to normal.
 
just works now?

seems to me that it's been enabled in 10.6.1. NTFS write just works for me, I didn't do anything (except uninstall my paragon ntfs).

anyone else?
 
Unstable and Cause Disk Error

I have tried this on my SL 10.6.1. It really mounts in R/W but it's VERY unstable. Usually accessing an NTFS partitions within 5 minutes will freeze the finder. The partition cannot be ejected, either. System won't shut down. Unplugging or cold boot will cause error in the disk.

And all the Mac additional attribute, e.g. file icons, are lost initially.

Disk Utility cannot Verify the NTFS partitions. And maybe DU needs mount_ntfs, it freezes every time I click info on an NTFS partition.

I have restored the original file. I am guessing the driver is not final so Apple doesn't release it? Do you guys find any problem?

Anyway, thank you for this creative trick:)
 
jammind said:
I have tried this on my SL 10.6.1. It really mounts in R/W but it's VERY unstable.
Click to expand...

Don't know what to think about it, but my SL is crashing similarly on NTFS volumes even without any modifications. It's a fresh install, so no previous Paragon or ntfs-3g drivers. Wonder if it is something volume specific.
 
jammind said:
I have tried this on my SL 10.6.1. It really mounts in R/W but it's VERY unstable. Usually accessing an NTFS partitions within 5 minutes will freeze the finder. The partition cannot be ejected, either. System won't shut down. Unplugging or cold boot will cause error in the disk.

And all the Mac additional attribute, e.g. file icons, are lost initially.

Disk Utility cannot Verify the NTFS partitions. And maybe DU needs mount_ntfs, it freezes every time I click info on an NTFS partition.

I have restored the original file. I am guessing the driver is not final so Apple doesn't release it? Do you guys find any problem?

Anyway, thank you for this creative trick:)
Click to expand...

Even I am facing the same problem :( SL hangs everytime I try to mount ntfs drive. I also encountered kp's on many occasions :( :(
I am currently thinking of formatting my external drive in HFS+ format but a solution to write to ntfs would be great.
 
hourlyrates said:
seems to me that it's been enabled in 10.6.1. NTFS write just works for me, I didn't do anything (except uninstall my paragon ntfs).
Click to expand...

Nope, NTFS R/W support is not enabled in 10.6.1, I assume you have some 'leftovers' from Paragon-NTFS on your system.

jammind said:
I have tried this on my SL 10.6.1. It really mounts in R/W but it's VERY unstable.
Click to expand...

There must be a reason why Apple disabled the R/W support :).

jammind said:
Disk Utility cannot Verify the NTFS partitions. And maybe DU needs mount_ntfs, it freezes every time I click info on an NTFS partition.
Click to expand...

Of course not, there is no fsck_ntfs to verify the drive and for me Info in DU works (no freeze)... so I guess that maybe something else is not correct on your system or something else is different.

jammind said:
I have restored the original file. I am guessing the driver is not final so Apple doesn't release it? Do you guys find any problem?
Click to expand...

I am guessing this as well :)... I use it only for USB-Sticks and so far it works for me :).

chavanak said:
but a solution to write to ntfs would be great.
Click to expand...

Paragon NTFS or NTFS-3G... I see no other option if you really 'need' NTFS support.

qillerneu said:
Don't know what to think about it, but my SL is crashing similarly on NTFS volumes even without any modifications. It's a fresh install, so no previous Paragon or ntfs-3g drivers. Wonder if it is something volume specific.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's possible the NTFS driver is very picky, try to force (no matter if the volume is clean or not) a filesystem check on a Windows system to see if the volume has some problems.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Undo/Uninstall

How do I undo what I did using terminal? I have had the Vista partition go corrupt twice this month, having to do a long 1hr repair on the file system. The only difference is this hack. OP, if you post the uninstall, you may consider doing it in your original post.
 
ryannazaretian said:
How do I undo what I did using terminal? I have had the Vista partition go corrupt twice this month, having to do a long 1hr repair on the file system. The only difference is this hack. OP, if you post the uninstall, you may consider doing it in your original post.
Click to expand...

If you mean with hack the script then I recommend you read the original message https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/8497247/ there you can read how you undo the modification.

If you mean the /etc/fstab 'hack', then you have to ask the OP.
 
I am also interested in how to undo the OP's hack...my bootcamp partition became corrupted aswell, most likely because of this.

update:

I was able to undo the OP's etc/fstab hack and return my partition to read only by opening terminal,

Type "sudo nano /etc/fstab"

You should see the "UUID=paste_the_uuid_here none ntfs rw" that you entered before.

Delete it, save the file (ctrl-x then y) and restart your system.
 
iBlacky said:
Nope, NTFS R/W support is not enabled in 10.6.1, I assume you have some 'leftovers' from Paragon-NTFS on your system.
Click to expand...

I have a new MBP with 10.6.1. I manually mounted a networked file server, formatted with NTFS, that I use with my PCs. Reading and writing seem to work just fine natively. No special drivers or software were ever installed on this machine. :):confused:
 
SolRayz said:
I am also interested in how to undo the OP's hack...my bootcamp partition became corrupted aswell, most likely because of this.

update:

I was able to undo the OP's etc/fstab hack and return my partition to read only by opening terminal,

Type "sudo nano /etc/fstab"

You should see the "UUID=paste_the_uuid_here none ntfs rw" that you entered before.

Delete it, save the file (ctrl-x then y) and restart your system.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I should have thought of that. :rolleyes:

Besides the file system corruption, I also got my first kernel panic dealing with some operation that OSX can use on NTFS. I disabled the write support and would recommend others who value their data to do the same.
 
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