I have an external harddrive that has tons of information and I used to use it in windows xp so its ntfs, how can I change this or how can i see ntfs format in red hat linux 9, plus I have no idea on how to mount it, can anyone help me? Thanks

if you can't see your windows partition as well as the external partition, then go here and download and install redhat ntfs support. you have to download the package that matches your kernel version.

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

you'll then need to edit your /etc/fstab file to include your windows partition and external hard drive partition.

open up a shell terminal and use these commands first:

1. mkdir /mnt/winxp
2. mkdir /mnt/windata

these will create your mount points for your windows hard drives.

now the tricky part since i don't know how you have your external hard drive setup, you'll need to find the device block label for your external hdd.

you can try this command for that:

3. fdisk -l

that's a little "L" after the hyphen.

now you'll have to edit /etc/fstab to create disk entries for mounting.

/dev/hda1 /mnt/winxp ntfs auto, ro 0 0
/dev/hdXY /mnt/windata ntfs auto, ro 0 0

the X in the device block identifier is a letter of some sort like 'a', 'b', 'c', etc... the Y maybe a number like '1', '2', '3'. that all depends on how your external hard drive is hooked up.

then use the mount command as root (su into root in a shell terminal)
4. mount /dev/hda1
5. mount /dev/hdXY

The donwload and install of the ntfs driver worked but i think i don't have fdisk cause I can't use that or any other fdisk command where can I get it?

Use su dash instead of su to become root user ie (su blank space dash)

su -

then run fdisk.

for me even as root it's not in the path.

i use as root:

/sbin/fdisk -l

i installed linux, properly. it works fine, now. But i cant find my hard drive in the /dev folder. i think it is supposed to be there.
anybody cant help me!

Thanks people, i got my external ntfs hardrive working plus now I can see my windows C: drive, this is cool. I just follow all the instructions. Thanks

i followed the instructions...
when i went to that site to download driver , i didn't know what my kernel version and Cpu were(My Cpu is p III 654). So i downloaded randomly a driver.
After i installed it, i opened the terminal to enter the instruction..
i enter this..
/dev/hdb1 /mnt/windata ntfs auto, ro 00
the answer was..
bash: /dev/hdb1: Permission denied
fdisk -l command works..
Disk /dev/hda: 20.5 GB, 20547841536 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2498 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 637 5116671 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 638 2498 14948482+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/hdb: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7297 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 * 1 7296 58605088+ 7 HPFS/NTFS


also..i entered "mount /dev/hda1" ..the anwer was:mount:
can't find /dev/hda1 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab



so please help me

Hi, I've been searching on here about mounting my NTFS partition nad I can't get it to work. I installed the new kernal update for NTFS, I add the entry into the fstab file , and when I go to mount I get "ntfs not supported by the kernel" although I've installed the kernel. Now I DID goof and installed the kernel update for a different kernel than my version. Is that bad? I try to install the version for my kernel, and I get 'kernel already installed" Is there a way to uninstall the kernel update ? What do I do to get this to work? ..