Stop OS X mounting NTFS partition on external drive.

Discussion in 'Mac Basics and Help' started by Tinlad, Oct 11, 2006.

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  1. Tinlad, Oct 11, 2006

    Tinlad macrumors member

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    Nottingham, UK
    #1
    I have a 250GB external firewire drive hooked up to my MacBook Pro. It has two partitions; one is HFS+ and the other is NTFS for use with XP via Boot Camp.

    The NTFS partition is useless to me whilst in OS X, so I was wondering if there's a way to stop it being mounted when I plug in the drive? I've stopped the NTFS partition on my startup disk from being mounted by using a fstab file, but that is only referred to at boot; not when an external drive is connected, so that method doesn't work.

    If anyone has any ideas I would appreciate it!

    Thanks,

    Guy.
     
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  2. yellow, Oct 11, 2006

    yellow Moderator emeritus

    yellow

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    #2
    An ugly solution would be to have a script that identifies and unmounts the NTFS volume constantly running via launchd. A very ugly solution.
     
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  3. mrichmon, Oct 11, 2006

    mrichmon macrumors 6502a

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    #3
    If you boot from the NTFS partition then the only way to select the NTFS partition in the Startup Disk preference pane is if the partition is mounted.

    Anyway, I discussed some of the issues you are asking about in this thread: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=216245
     
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  4. Tinlad, Oct 11, 2006

    Tinlad thread starter macrumors member

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    #4
    mrichmon: I think you've misunderstood my problem. The NTFS partition on my external drive doesn't contain a Windows installation; it is purely data. I don't boot from it at all. I have already dealt with the NTFS partition on my internal drive.

    EDIT: Just realised that it might sound like I have XP installed on the external drive in my original post. Sorry about that. Thanks for trying to help.

    yellow: Thanks for the suggestion. It's ugly, as you say, and I think I'd rather have the icon on my desktop than have a script running all the time just looking for it.:)
     
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  5. yellow, Oct 11, 2006

    yellow Moderator emeritus

    yellow

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    #5
    Astute observation. The script would be a waste of resources. Probably a minor one, but a waste none-the-less.
     
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  6. PatrickF, Oct 12, 2006

    PatrickF macrumors 6502

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    #6
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  7. Tinlad, Oct 12, 2006

    Tinlad thread starter macrumors member

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    #7
    Excellent! That works. I'd tried using fstab before, but it didn't work. Perhaps I got the syntax wrong or something.:confused:

    Anyway, thanks!:)
     
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