'Simple' NTFS Question

Richard Rahl · 08-02-2006, 09:34 AM

With the latest Linux Kernel running KDE 3.5 with Knoppix and SuSE 10, is it safe to mount an NTFS drive as read/write without screwing it up? I mean just simply dragging and dropping files to My Documents and things like that...not screwing around with system volume information etc. Although, for information, what are the absolute no-no things you should touch in the windows drive? And why is it that I can see loads of files on my NTFS drive that I can't see in Windows even with hidden/system files turned on? I've been reading NTFS drives with no problem but I want to know if I can just write to them, or if I should create a seperate partition to keep my user files on that would be accesible from both Windows and Linux.

Thanks!

kilgoretrout · 08-02-2006, 10:36 AM

Write support to NTFS is still listed as experimental in the current linux kernel AFAIK. While there are several third party apps for writing to NTFS from linux, some free, some for pay, I don't know how reliable any of them are. Unless there is some pressing need to write to an NTFS partition, like for doing repairs, I would avoid it, even with the third party apps.
Re the files you can see in linux that you can't see in windows, there are different attributes you can attatch to files in windows apart from "hidden" to make them truly undetectable(i.e. secret) in windows under most circumstances. Actually, the whole thing is kind of sinister if your the paranoid type. See this article for more details:

http://www.microsuck.com/content/ms-hidden-files.shtml

Richard Rahl · 08-03-2006, 06:20 AM

Ah, okay. Thanks for the advice! I'll just create an Ext3 parition to share files and run fs driver so I can access it from Windows. Seem like an okay idea?

rickh · 08-03-2006, 06:28 AM

Quote:

I'll just create an Ext3 parition to share files and run fs driver

Most people just use Fat32 to format shared drives. No fs driver needed.

Richard Rahl · 08-03-2006, 06:42 AM

I guess I probably shouldn't, but I have data files over 4GB

lol

syg00 · 08-03-2006, 06:49 AM

I'm with rickh - I've always done it that way.
Last time I tested the kernel NTFS support (2.6.15) it was listed as stable, but was still too flaky for me to trust my data to it.
Been meaning to test at 2.6.17 (er, maybe .18 by now), and the new ntfs-3g re-write, but been too busy doing real (i.e money generating) work. Been seeing good reports tho'.

Your data, your choice.

Edit: - gotta learn to post before I wander off ...