Is there some reason no one can write an NTFS driver for the pure x64 10.6 kernel?

[Riemann Zeta]

Title pretty much sums it up. I would like to be able to have full read/write/format/repair ability for NTFS partitions, but every single solution out there explicitly says that it only works with the x32 version of Snow Leopard. This includes Paragon NTFS, NTFS-3g and the newest corporate version of NTFS-3g (which offers dramatically better file copy speed than the old free version). Curiously, the final version of MacFUSE ever released (2.1.7b)--the underlying driver that facilitates all of these NTFS filesystem plugins--is 64bit and has an x64 kext that works just fine. Considering that the FUSE part of MacFUSE stands for Filesystem in User Space, shouldn't it be relatively easy to transition the userland part of the driver (the part that actually deciphers the filesystem) to x64?

 

[pdjudd]

NTFS is a Microsoft product, and they really don't provide the source code completely for just anybody to use. MacFuse is highly experimental, probably due to the fact that they have to do alot of guesswork to avoid legal issues and the inherent differences in file system technologies.

 

[old-wiz]

making a real NTFS driver requires one really know how NTFS works. Very few people outside of Microsoft know how it works. Some people say even people within Microsoft don't know.

 

[tatical]

making a real NTFS driver requires one really know how NTFS works. Very few people outside of Microsoft know how it works. Some people say even people within Microsoft don't know.

LMAO!!!

 

[Riemann Zeta]

But isn't NTFS-3g--and its new, higher-performance commercial sibling--considered 'stable' and pretty much solid on Linux and other various Unicies (including the x32 version of Mac OS 10.6)? I wonder what the difficulty with x64 is? Perhaps it is more the fault of MacFUSE (which has not been updated in ages) than NTFS-3g.

Very few people outside of Microsoft know how it works. Some people say even people within Microsoft don't know.

Looking over the description of the filesystem layout, etc..., I can understand why--it looks damn complicated.