Please forgive my ignorance but I am very new to Linux (apart from some basic usage at work where our software mainly runs on Linux). I have a dual boot system on my work laptop with Windows XP and Red Hat Linux but Windows is not booting correctly and I need to access some work files. I understand that it is possible to view/access Windows files through Linux. I have used the Hardware Browser to identify the Windows partition but it states that it is of 'No filesystem'. Is this because it is of NTFS rather than FAT type? If so, is anyone able to point me in the direction of some basic guides to allowing my system to see NTFS, or able to offer me some simple steps to go through? I have seen comments about updating my kernel but this may be a little beyond my current ability.

Many thanks in advance for your help.

Ian

open your file manager and go to /mnt/your hard drive. things you need to post. Linux Distro. and what desk top kde gnome etc. then we can begin. the location is. what ever partion you have windows on let me guess /mnt/sda1 your in /home/your in your place kde on the desk top system media storage your hard drive. gnome open the nautilus file manager on the left is the hard drives pic yours go there.

Did you try to boot from a linux cd (knoppix..)
I have good experiences with puppy, it will show and let you access all drives connected to the computer,

Look at the Windows partition with "sudo /sbin/fdisk -l". Do you see it or has the partition table itself been damaged?
Suppose that your Windows partition is /dev/sda1. Then you could check and see if it is recognized with the `file' program.
To be able to read from an NTFS filesystem, the `ntfs' kernel module needs to be loaded. This could be the reason that it didn't detect the filesystem.
An alternative is to use the `ntfs-3g' filesystem. For this you need the `fuse' kernel module loaded and install the `ntfs-3g' package if it isn't already.
Here is an example:
If you use "mount -t ntfs-3g ..." instead, you will have both read and write access. It is possible that the filesystem is corrupt and won't mount. It is also possible that the partition table entry for it is damaged, but if Linux boots OK, then I doubt that this would be the case.

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You mentioned that you use Red Hat Linux. If this is a very old RH distro or early Fedora Core distro, it may not have NTFS kernel module support built into the kernel. In that case, it would be easiest to boot up live distro and use that instead.

hey jschiwal is red hat out of the box using sudo the fedora 9 I use runs su root.

Thanks for the replies guys

jschiwal, I followed your steps through to the modrpobe ntfs stage and this is where I ground to a hault. It appears that I do no have the ntfs module. I have kernel version 2.6.9-42.0.10.EL. Presumably I can just find it online somewhere and download it but will it auto-install or is there some installation procedure I need to go through? Presumably after that it should see my windows partition ok.

Cheers for the help

Ian

You can check whether you have the ntfs module (ntfs.ko) with this command:

find /lib -iname "*ntfs*"

The most likely location for your ntfs.ko is:

/lib/modules/2.6.9-42.0.10.EL/kernel/fs/ntfs/ntfs.ko

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Steve Stites

Thanks jailbait,

This is far as I can get. There is no /ntfs folder at this location so I guess that means it's not installed.

The find /lib -iname "*ntfs*" command did not work unfortunately, it gave an error: find: invalid predicate `-iname*ntfs*'

I guess I just need to start googling for ntfs updates ....

You may need to add your username to the wheel group and uncomment the line in sudoers that lets %wheel group members use sudo.

I'm afraid that your kernel may not be built with NTFS_FS support.

Run "grep CONFIG_NTFS /boot/config-2.6.9-42.0.10*"

If it says CONFIG_NTFS_FS is not set, then your kernel was built without the NTFS kernel module.

This leaves you with 3 choices:
1) rebuild your kernel
2) install the "fuse" and "fuse-ntfs3g" packages: "sudo yum install fuse-ntfs3g.i386" or "sudo yum install fuse-ntfs3g.x86_64"
3) boot up with a live distro that has ntfs support.

Your kernel version is so old that I don't know if you can install the fuse module. That may leave option 3.

i would update that red hat 5 first

your kernel is 2.6.9-42.0.
my current is 2.6.27.7-53

there has been a lot of time between 2.6.9 and 2.6.27

also i think RH compiles there kernel without support for ntfs-3g .Use fuse and ntfs instead

If I were you, I would use a live distro to pull your documents off the drive before installing a newer version of Linux. You don't want to accidentally delete the Windows partition, loosing your work documents. IMHO, getting those documents backed up is job #1. Any recent live distro should work. You could but up with a live distro and plug in an external drive or a USB thumbdrive.

I looked at my old laptop, where I have installed Fedora Core 10. The kernel wasn't configure with NTFS_FS support. Recompiling the kernel is a bit of work for FC. Since my laptop only has FC on it, I don't need NTFS support. I could install the ntfs-3g and ntfstools packages if I did.

Don't let this deter you from installing a newer distro later however. There have been a number of improvements since your
old version. Also, you want to be able to patch your system with security updates.

Good advice..

IGF

Just as a bit of an aside, that kernel is an RHEL4.4 kernel, but RHEL4.7 is the latest in that series with 2.6.9-78. RHEL4 is still supported though IIRC

I've updated the kernel to 2.6.9-78.0.8 and run the "grep CONFIG_NTFS /boot/config-2.6.9-78.0.8*" which stated that CONFIG_NTFS_FS is not set so I followed the suggestion for installing fuse-ntfs3g. I have also located ntfs module kernel-module-ntfs.2.6.9-78.0.8EL-2.1.20-0.rr.10.0.i686.ko asit s been mentioned elsewhere that I may need this but I'm not sure if I actually do, and if so where/how I should install it.

I appreciate all the help and advice so far, it's a whole lot more complicated than I had anticipated.