Thanks for the explanation, yancek. I always under the impression NTFS was sort of a middle ground thing between Linux and Windows. Now I realize that it's Windows that Linux just happens to work well on.

As a filesystem on which to share data only it does, thanks to the time and massive effort contributed by various Linux developers. I've seen threads here and other forums where people tried to install Linux on an ntfs filesystem which of course, will not work. So repairing windows filesystems, use windows software, repairing Linux filesystems use Linux software. Good luck with it.

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Hey Gregg - been away for a bit - just catching up on this. Looks like things are good and that you've got most of your answers - good news !

It seems you may not have a problem at all with the USB drive. As I mentioned in my first post, the warning icon in GParted was just because ntfs support (ntfs-3g) wasn't installed. It's a file-system driver that all linux apps need to deal with ntfs partitions. Some distros install it by default, in my experience, most don't. It's easy to add - I have added it on all my systems.

With respect to the choice of ntfs for sharing between linux and Windows systems, as explained by yancek - ntfs is indeed a Windows-based file system (introduced way back in the days of Windows NT, as a successor and improvement to the IBM/Microsoft developed HPFS which was used on OS/2 .. ;-). As also mentioned, however, linux support is reliably made possible through ntfs-3g. So ntfs is one of the best choices for linux-Windows compatibility (the others being FAT32 and exFAT, but certain limitations apply ... I prefer ntfs).

Cheers !

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Thanks yancek. Appreciate it.

Hey Rick. I'm still a bit confused. The pen drive got fixed by Window's chkdsk .

And all my NTFS pen drives have worked fine for years without the ntfs-3g you mentioned. So do I need to add it? And if I do, do you have a command for adding it?

And I'm so glad you said you prefer NTFS because that's what all my pen drives are! Phew!

Gregg, your system already has the ntfs-3g package installed. We figured that out earlier in the thread (post #12). The package is auto installed on Ubuntu systems, which is why you have always been able to read/write NTFS filesystems.

Why the error message in post #9 said what it did, I don't know, but it wasn't because you didn't have ntfs-3g installed. Unless you ran gparted after booting up from an external media that didn't actually have ntfs-3g installed.

If I were you, I would consider the error message in post #9 to be a red herring. The original problem with the drive was corrected by running chkdsk on the drive. Everything is good.

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Hey Gregg - I'm afraid I had missed post #12, the one hydrurga is referring to. As he correctly pointed out, you DO have ntfs-3g already installed on your linux system. My mistake - and sorry for adding to the confusion. I had also not realized you had run chkdsk on your USB drive .. I'll have to catch up on threads more carefully in future.

I agree with hydrurga that you can consider the "ntfs missing" message from GParted as a red herring of sorts. Faced with the problem that you eventually corrected with chkdsk, it (GParted) seems to have defaulted to one of its standard "can't deal with ntfs" messages.

So you're all set, from what I can see. Once again, sorry for the confusion I may have caused by not keeping up with the discussion. Do feel free to return for any other questions.

Cheers !

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Thanks hydrurga. I rushed through the results of post #12 and so I missed it entirely. (I'll slow down and pay more attention from now on.) And good to know about the red herring warning. Like you said earlier: 'don't worry about maybe problems.'

Good to know all is well!

Thanks Rick. I missed post #12 too! Glad to know it's all working right. Appreciate your help.