Yes, I know 2009.1 is out of date. But I am doing a temporary backup project and I have to use whatever Linux DVDs I have lying around. I want to relate a behavior that is counter-productive. My chassis is an HP Pavilion A350N mid-tower. The motherboard inside is an ASUS P4SD-LA (perhaps not the original motherboard). I have 1 GB RAM.

I am trying to copy files to a 1 TB SATA drive, which is partitioned as 800 GB NTFS and the rest EXT4.

Before I mount the NTFS partition, the mount point looks like this:

drwxr-xr-x /mnt/1tb-sdc1

After I mount the NTFS partition, it looks like this:

dr-x------ /mnt/1tb-sdc1 ntfs (rw)

And, predictably, when I try to copy files to this 1 TB drive, Midnight Commander says it is a read-only file system.

When I unmount the partition, the directory /mnt/1tb-sdc1 goes back to drwxr-xr-x.

But when I mount the EXT4 partition (onto /mnt/1tb-sdc2), the permissions do NOT change, and I can copy files freely.

What is changing the directory permissions on the NTFS mount? Is there some sort of protection mechanism in place? I want to copy stuff from IDE drives to the 1 TB SATA, since IDE systems are getting pretty rare these days. I am trying to get a machine that will read both, but 2 or 3 such systems died on me, just in the effort to get this file copying project done! (Also 2 electrical outlets in my computer room failed last week, and they will need a professional to repair; I think drywall must be torn out.)

I am working as root. I am experienced, and this machine has no internet access. It is a temporary rig. Also I need root permissions to copy stuff, mount partitions, etc. I am comfortable working as root for this file backup project.

Why do the permissions change on the NTFS mount (so I cannot copy the files I need to copy), and the permissions do not change on the EXT4 mount? Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

By whatever DVDs are lying around does that mean you are running only live versions?

What file system type are you using to mount the partition i.e. ntfs vs ntfs-3g?
ntfs is read only. If ntfs-3g was not installed by default and if you do not want to copy all the files to the ext partition then you will need to take a different path.

In a nutshell permissions are different between the two operating systems and therefore you need to mount the partition as a particular user with permissions set using the umask option. If using ntfs-3g then try using umask=000 mount option.

I'm running an Asus P4SD-LA with 1 GB Ram. Kernel is 2.6.29.1-desktop-4mnb-dual-proc-i686. Video card is a GeForce 6300 GT, 256 Meg AGP. I'm installing a stand-alone installation, but no internet access since this is just a temporary machine.

My 120 GB IDE boot drive has:

/dev/sda1 7.7 GB -- the system, ext4 IIRC
/dev/sda2 extended partition, rest of disk
/dev/sda5 swap (reasonable amount)
/dev/sda6 /home -- 99 GB, ext4 IIRC

(Various IDE and SATA drives may be connected [and partitions mounted] to move files around.)

According to my notes as a long-time Mandriva person, NTFS WRITING is turned ON by default in 2008.1, and it worked reliably. Do you think they "regressed" with 2009.1?

Is there another subsystem that I need to install to handle NTFS? Please tell me.

(I'm about to reinstall because the X-server suddenly won't start. Drakconf naturally chooses GeForce 6100 and later, it causes reboots. Changing to "Generic frame buffer 1280 x 1024 16 bpp" simply causes the monitor to go to sleep until after the test ends and drakconf takes over again.)