Browsing NTFS Drives From Linux.
 

Hello Guys, i have xp and linux (FC4) on the same HDD, is there a way to browse the windows' ntfs drive within linux? Because everytime i need a file that is located on my windows partition, i'm burning the file onto a CD-RW to import it to linux. Thanks.

Fedora Core does not support the NTFS out of the box, please visit;

http://www.linux-ntfs.org/

Actually, all you have to do is upgrade to kernel 2.6.15, which now has full ntfs read and write support. Then you are set to go. Note that I think you still have to mount that partition as an ntfs mount.

Well, 2.6.15 has full READ support (it cannot access encrypted files because it obviously won't have the user SID and encryption key pair) and about 90% write support, e.g,, if a file is heavily fragmented, you will not be able to write to that file. They're taking a conservative approach to avoid corrupting the MFT.

What the NTFS team really ought to do is decompile the Windows drivers and reimplement NTFS in a better way than Microsoft did (yes I know the Windows source is on the web, but it was leaked illegally plus simply lifing the code would violate a variety of copyrights and make the Linux kernel a legal liability for anyone running it). I'd be willing to bet that the NTFS kernel module maintainers can produce an NTFS implementation which is more fragmentation-resistant than Microsoft's.

So assuming you are a defragment whore like I am, and defrag in windows multiple times a week and have a 0% fragmentation constantly... you would effectively have full NTFS read and write support, correct?