Cannot Mount NTFS External HDD on Fedora 11

firewiz87 · 09-07-2009, 10:31 PM

These days NTFS support comes out of the box in most of the distros.... I dont think you ll have to install it separately....
The mount command can auto detect the file system... (please correct me if i am wrong), i never even had to give the -t option...

manwithaplan · 09-08-2009, 02:13 AM

I just went through this ... I had to create a custom HAL policy. I created a policy in
/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/20-ntfs-3g.fdi

In the file I added the following XML info:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 <deviceinfo version="0.2">
   <device>
     <match key="volume.fstype" string="ntfs">
         <merge key="volume.fstype" type="string">ntfs-3g</merge>
         <merge key="volume.policy.mount_filesystem" type="string">ntfs-3g</merge>
         <append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">locale=</append>
     </match>
   </device>
 </deviceinfo>

With this policy, and my user with proper group permissions. I am able to mount my ntfs partition from Nautilus.

If you use policykit, you might need to add a policy in your Policy.conf file.

This is with ntfs3g installed, and using hal to handle mounts.

djeikyb · 09-08-2009, 04:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BumbleBee

-Basically if i make the two hard drives ext4, will Linux and Windows be able to access them completely with no problems?

I don't see a specific mention of ext4, but I use ext2fsd to access my linux partitions while in windows. The major downside is lack of case sensitivity. Ie, I have two folders, "music" and "Music". I only get access to one of them in Windows. I also tried Ext2Ifs, but (1) it's ugly (2) community development is prohibited. It did work though.

BumbleBee · 09-08-2009, 09:29 PM

Okay so i ran yum search ntfs-3g and it said i did have it so i ran yum install ntfs-3g and it said already installed nothing to do meaning i already have it...

manwithaplan · 09-08-2009, 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BumbleBee

Okay so i ran yum search ntfs-3g and it said i did have it so i ran yum install ntfs-3g and it said already installed nothing to do meaning i already have it...

Create the file I posted above... Reboot and try to access the NTFS partition. It worked for me...

BumbleBee · 09-09-2009, 03:27 PM

Do i do this terminal???
If i really do this in terminal then do i enter each new line as an individual command or one big command?

manwithaplan · 09-09-2009, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BumbleBee

Do i do this terminal???
If i really do this in terminal then do i enter each new line as an individual command or one big command?

Nah... this is a xml file that tells linux to use ntfs-3g to open your NTFS partition when you click on the icon. Here is what you do:

Terminal:

Code:

$ sudo su

# gedit /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/20-ntfs-3g.fdi &

This will open gedit, now copy and paste the XML code I posted above, then save the document.

Double check to see if the file has been created, with:

Code:

# ls /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/20-ntfs-3g-policy.fdi

It should print out the path to verify that the file has been created.

BumbleBee · 09-13-2009, 10:42 AM

Wow, I had so many hard times with Fedora, it was buggy, weird, and not user friendly so I just reinstalled and put the latest Ubuntu and it mounts my drives no problem with no commands required. It already has all my needed drivers, works better, starts faster. ITs 10x better for noobs then Fedora i think. Thanks for the help though, since I am new to linux I plan on wasting some DVD's so i can try a bunch of different linuxes including gentoo, pclinux, slackware, mandriva, and bunch of others just for the heck of it, but Ubuntu seems a lot more noob-friendly so I am sticking with that for now.

-THANKS for the help, its just fedora is not for a linux noob.

lutusp · 09-13-2009, 11:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BumbleBee

[ snip ]

So then since it failed, I went into my mnt directory and found that "mount-point" was not there. So I went back to terminal and tried to make another mount-point by typing this command

"mkdir /mnt/moint point"

The directory name you have chosen has a space in it. I personally don't allow spaces in my file names and paths, but you can do this if you want. But to do it, you need to enclose the path in quotes:

# mkdir "/mnt/mount point"

# mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb1 "/mnt/mount point"

Then, every time you want to refer to this mount point, you will have to remember to enclose the path in quotes. Over a period of years you will type so many extra quotes that you might have spent that lost time inventing a cure for cancer instead. But it's a free world and we all choose our own paths ... umm, no pun intended.

The alternative is not to allow spaces in paths and file names:

# mkdir /mnt/mount_point

# mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb1 /mnt/mount_point

BumbleBee · 09-13-2009, 08:10 PM

Well, I wont be able to do that now, because I took my hammer, smashed Fedora and put on Ubuntu and been using it so far all day, all i can say is that, it might take a bit getting used to but its interface is similar to fedora's but its way more user friendly so once I learn simple things like that then I will move to fedora core 12 which hopefully will be better then core 11 becuase core 11 i think gives a bad representation of linux overall.
-There were so many problems I also had with fedora i never told you about, there was a wierd virtual secured hard drive which did not exist and i couldn't access it which was wierd, plus the add/remove software worked really weird i had no clue how to use while in ubuntu is way better.

lhorace · 09-13-2009, 08:24 PM

Sad you haven't had any luck with Fedora 11 and when I had it installed, it detected ntfs out of box with no probs... I'm using Fedora 10 and I don't think Fedora 11 is completely ready but I heard from another community member that CentOS is good...