hello,
i have an external hdd (iomega 160 Gb) which is in NTFS file system
i like to attach it to my linux (debian) distro and share it with smb,
but the problem is that linux tell me that this ntfs disk is read only and i can't write to it
any suggestions????

thank you

the suggestion is... don't write to it. simple as that. write support is VERY alpha, and you WILL lose data.

is there a way to convert it abck to FAT32 witout loosing data?
i have elsewhere to put them so i can format it

maybe some partition magic or other windows app will do the trick. I wouldn't trust ntfs too much to linux. The read support is perfect but that's about it. I'm not sure if there is a linux tool for making the fat32 filesystem, but i'd stick to some windows machine to switch it.

i have powerquest partitionmagic 8 which can convert NTFS to FAT32 but i've seen somewhere that it can cause data loss!!
do you know if it's safe or not?

If i were you i'd store the data on some extra hard drives or nfs partitions or whatever (just copy it) and then i'd try converting it. If you don't have enough space just store the vital things you need and try it. If you loose anything just recover it from the hard drives, and if you don't you have it all on the partition already and you just have to erase the back up copies. I've had really bad experiences with external hard drives so i say "you can never be carefull enough". I've lost over 90 gigs in one accident, and that's not something you can repair easily (especially all the e-mails). Luckily i had some copies of my important projects and was more or less able to continue (they were the last version, but they were pretty modern). So just play it safe, even if it takes an extra day to save all the back ups. Of course you can then try it and have it work perfectly, but loosing data's a bitch.
#rant off
Good luck.

thank you for this precious reply, but before i begin with all this i just want to know if it really works sharing a linux H.D.D with Windows???
does it really work??

Yes it does, but you might find yourself with some permission troubles and sometimes having troubles unmounting it. I did for a while when starting linux. The only setback is that since it's FAT32 it has a file size limit of 4GB and since i was working with 4+ GB files i had to quickly go all linux and ext3. Possible it is, but you might have some minor headaches like permissions (set chmask=000) and file sizes.

and as usual no program can read ext3 filesystem right?
i mean on windows, there's no special program that can read ext3 format

Not that i know of, but i know that windows can read nfs shares with some programs. So you can export it as an nfs share and use a windows machine to read it. I doubt it'll be as effective as nfs sharing between linux but technically it should work. You could also try making a local ftp server to get it working, just hook up with a client and allow uploads. These are uglier ways to do it, but they should work. I ended up giving up windows because the file sharing made me have to choose between one system and another, and it's a no brainer. Not many "hardcore" games but now a days, who needs games? Just having nwn and ut2004 are more then enough.

what about Samba? Doesn't Samba allow for windows to access and ext3 system?

I dunno, does it?

well i think samba does it, i already shared my home directory,
but i'm asking if it's possible to really see the ext3 file system, reason: it's an external HDD and sometimes i want to share my files with my friends, and they have only windows

If you want it like that i'd make an http server, where they "download" it off the lan, that way they get max speeds and the host can give multiple files at a time. It's also on all the time so no need to mount or anything, just punch in your static lan ip address and enjoy the downloads. Of course with http they won't be able to upload, but you can probably samba into their shared directories. Check out apache for help.

EDIT: btw you'd have to either make a virtual server that is only accessible from the lan if you already are using apache or you'd have to block port 80 with your router/gateway so that people won't be able to download your files from the internet.

well the problem is i already have a web/dns/ftp/mail server on the same box
it runs debian sarge + VHCS2.4 so i can make it like this if i want by simply protecting the directory with password or a php scripts to monitor the ips also
that's why i ask, in fact all i want to do is to get rid of the cables on my laptop, i have bough a wifi router to get rid of the cables and now i'm stuck with the external H.D.D cables