I've decided to use my Windows/NTFS partition to store both Windows and Linux files. I still have a separate Linux home folder, however, I've mounted my Windows partition to /mnt/WindowsXP.

I thought this was a nifty idea... I could access all of my files regardless of whether I'm on Windows or Linux. However, while transferring files and things I realized that if I deleted something from the Windows XP (read-write), it was nowhere to be found. Not in "Trash", NOWHERE!! In fact, when I deleted the folder I didn't even know what I had deleted... (I had two windows open and thought I was deleting something from my home folder, then realized that something disappeared in the other window beside it... the WindowsXP folder...) I had to think about it for a while, then I realized that it wasn't all that serious, a small folder with two files in it, which I had already backed up on a DVD and which I could also access via email...

Anyway, what I'd like to do is for these deleted NTFS files to end up in the Linux Trash or somewhere else instead of disappearing into nowhere... That way, if I inadvertently delete something, I could get it back. Is there a way of doing this?

I'm on Fedora Core 6.

Many thanks.

In both KDE and Gnome, if I right click on the file I want to get rid of, I can select "Move to trash". In order to delete it I have to go through the Edit menu of the file browser in KDE, can't see the option to delete in Ubuntu's Gnome. Or empty the trash, which is the last chance in any OS.

Writing to a NTFS filesystem in Linux is still not very reliable. If you don't really want to "rm -rf windows"' you should use FAT32 instead.

The "Move to Trash" option is there, however, if you select it, your files/folders will be gone forever and there will be nothing in the Trash! (I'm talking about the NTFS files/folders and not the Linux ones, of course).

Hmmm... Interesting about ntfs... Crap! I thought this would be a good solution to accessing everything from both OSs...

Anybody have any other ideas on what would be a convenient way of doing this?

See the post above ^^^^ FAT32 filesystems are read/write for both OSes, with no problems such as you're now having.

rm -rf windows:

you should simply select "show hidden files" and locate the .Trash folder of that NTFS partition - that's where those files go. I have been using the same set-up for about half a year and I haven't run into any issues so far. Then again, I've got everything backed up on a remote system so I'm not too concerned.

Bruce Hill,

Yeah, maybe the FAT32 is a better solution, however, I'd have to reinstall Windows. Going from FAT32 to NTFS is easy, the other way around is impossible.


jay73,

Very interesting that you have the same setup, or almost. I suspect that there's something different about your setup and would be very interested in knowing more about it.

Here's mine:

- The entire Windows hard disk (C:\) is mounted to /mnt as follows:
/mnt/WindowsXP

- I then made several different soft symbolic links to the desktop and the /home/user folders (My documents to both, as well as another folder which is in the My document folder).

- When I do "Show Hidden Files" (FC6, GNOME) in the MyDocumentsXP folder I do not get a .Trash directory. In fact, there is no .Trash directory anywhere to be found in the WindowsXP mounted partition. Even if I go into Documents and Settings, I cannot see the Windows Trash (which is always on the desktop). All I get in the My documents folder are two files called desktop.ini and Default.rdp.

Perhaps there is something in your setup that is different from mine, and if so, I'd be really interested in knowing more about your specific setup.

Thanks for your help.

Create a separate partition for moving data between the two systems - NTFS (using 3g) or fat32. Mount your Windoze system partitions read-only for safety. Expose as little as possible to "accidents".

Every NTFS volume has a recycler, you have to enable viewing protected operating system files in folder options/view in Windows to see it. In my present XP setup, it is in C:\, for my data partition it is in D:\.

Both syg00 and Junior Hacker score good points. The crucial difference between our setups is that you have only a single NTFS partition - and one formated by Windows too. As a matter of performance and security, I keep separate NTFS system (about 25 to 30G - you may need less) and data partitions and I make the latter under Linux. Windows made partitions do not have a .Trash folder as you discovered. On the other hand, Linux made NTFS partitions are not created with the Windows specific set of hidden files (including Volume Information and Recycler). I would have to check whether this implies that Windows has any trouble deleting files from such a partition; my guess is that it wouldn't as it checks for new partitions at boot time and demands to be rebooted into safe mode if it feels anything is fishy. I haven't booted into windows for the last six months so I'm not 100% sure but I am going to do so later today just to find out. I'll let you know what happened.

And here are the results of the Belgian jury. The .Trash folder on the shared partition shows up just fine under XP. The only "problem" is that it (self-evidently) is not recognized as deleted files by XP but as a regular folder instead. In other words, all the files I deleted under Linux are still there, in the .Trash, and have to be moved to Windows Trash if I actually want to get rid of them.

Right, next up, rebooting into Linux and finding out whether I can still see the files I have just deleted from Linux (the Recycler folder doesn't show up under XP - not on any partition - so I can't tell right now).

By the way, Linux doesn't consider the .Trash folder on an NTFS partition that was formated under Linux as deleted files either - the files don't show in the general Trash can on the desktop so they have to be deleted manually before they are gone for good. Not necessarily a bad thing, I think. Much better than seeing files disappear into thin air anyway.

OK, I'm back "home". I have checked the shared partition after accessing the NTFS partition for the first time under XP and as I more or less expected, it appears that Windows did create hidden Recycler and Volume Information folders.

To sum it up: no issues although there is a slight difference with Linux native partitions. As pointed out, deleted files are not accessible from the general trash can but from the trash can on the NTFS partition. Unless, of course, you use rm (-rf).