Can you mount a NTFS read-write?
I changed the fstab from ro to rw, but doesn't seem to make any difference. Do I have to reboot?

TIA,
Fred

You are taking a big risk ...

NTFS support is Read-Only.
Do NOT write to NTFS from Linux.
It may corrupt your NTFS filesystem.

Check out this:

http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/ntfs.html

You have to enable write support in the kernel I think. But it is listed as DANGEROUS when you run menuconfig for kernel configuration. I guess write support still doesn't work well. I haven't tried it myself. I have a Fat32 partition for sharing files between windows and linux.

In fact, I believe that you actually definitely WILL corrupt the filesystem if you do write to it. I remember reading somewhere that the NTFS write capability always (intentionally) corrupts the filesystem, but it tries to do so in a way that's easy to repair by the NTFS repair utility.

But yeah, in short, don't mount NTFS r/w.

OK, sounds like it would not be a good idea then.
The reason I was wanting to was because everything that I copy from the windows side is "read-only" and I have to do a chmod on the files each time. Is there an automatic way to do this?
Thanks!

If you are copying a directory, you can change the permissions of the directory and all of the files and sub-directories in it with the following syntax:
Or
you can always create a script which does a cp and then a chmod.

I believe changing the umask might do the trick for you. Try setting it to 027 by typing "umask 027" at the console.

so in the fstab, would that be umask= 0 2 7 ?

No spaces though:
umask=027

I don't know whether this'll stick across the filesystems when copied though. And the 0 in that umask will not enable the write bit even though it'll essentially be creating a chmod of 7 (because of the above mentioned kernel compile requirement).

COol

Yeah, I didn't mean that it would enable write access to the NTFS volume, I meant it would make it so he doesn't have to change permissions when he copies files from the NTFS volume over to his Linux partition(s). I've never really used umask, was I correct about it?

Well, I changed it in the fstab to:
/dev/hdb1 /mnt/windows ntfs iocharset=iso8859-1,ro,umask=027

but the file is still read-only when I copy it to my home directory, do I need to do something to make the new fstab active?

Ummm you may need to reboot. I am sure there is a command to do what you are asking, but I don't know what it is, I only know a reboot would do it

And yes, that normally is the Windows way of doing things, but when you don't know the command to reinitialize something, why not just let the system do it for you?

Nah, just ask

mount -a -o remount
OR
umount /mnt/windoze
mount /mnt/windoze
To issue the remount command in 2 commands rather than one.



And I don't know if it'll work either, but according to the umask, that is correct, but copying FROM windoze TO linux is a ball park I'm not all that familiar with.

OT:
SLC and WA eh? I'm in WA, and moving back to SLC I was originally from there. What part you from? Me, Glendale originally, moved to West Valley, went to Kennedy Junior High and Hunter High, graduated from Granite. Feel free to email me so we don't clog this guys thread (sorry for the temporary heist ).

Cool

OK, now I get "permission denied" when trying to move to /mnt/windows as a regular user. it has:
dr-xr-x--- 1 root root 12288 Aug 13 18:01 windows/

any ideas?

Ah yeah, shoulda caught that, my bad.

It has been established (yet for unknown reasons) that you need a umask=000 for NTFS to work for simple read-only for users. The script idea sounds like the best solution at this point. That or an alias (alias might be better actually).

Cool