second ntfs partitioon will not mount

creeper_lin · 05-15-2006, 11:28 AM

i have a 120gb ntfs formated hdd hooked up to my computer, that has windows xp and a whole bunch of windows utilities and files. I don't want to lose any of that but i want to access some of those files, but the second partition will not mount. I have tried numerous was to fix it using the ftab file, but i always fail... HELP...

jschiwal · 05-15-2006, 11:34 AM

Post the output of "fdisk -l" which lists the partitions. Also, post what you tried in your fstab file. Are you certain that the second partition uses the NTFS filesystem. Another possibility is that the second partition is on an extended partition. In this case, suppose that your hard drive is device /dev/hdb. Then you will probably have a /dev/hdb1 and a /dev/hdb5. The output of "fdisk -l" should provide you with this answer.

creeper_lin · 05-15-2006, 11:45 AM

thanx,
i'm not currently on that machine so i can't tell you what 'fdisk' says, but i can answer the other ?s.
'Fstab:'
/dev/hdc2 /mnt/hdd ntfs RO 0 0
yes it is a ntfs filesystem
and yes it is an extended partition
would the device name be hdc5?

jschiwal · 05-15-2006, 07:00 PM

Yes, if it is on an extended partition, then the extended partition itself is most likely /dev/hdc4 and the contained partition is /dev/hdc5. This supposes that you haven't had other partitions that you have added or deleted. Use the "fdisk -l" command to verify this.

Some distro's have a partitioner program where you can set the mount point for an existing partition, and set various options, such as the "umask" setting.
Such a program may also determine whether you want to use an option to set the encoding. For an NTFS filesystem, you may want to use the "utf8" option. You also want to use either the umask option or separate fmask and dmask options. This will allow normal users access to the drive. You can even change the ownership with the "uid" mount option. The "man mount" man page will give you more details.

Fat32 and NTFS partitions are different, because you can't use the "chmod", "chown" and "chgrp" commands. You need to set these attributes by including them in the mount options. They effect the entire partition. Also, normally the NTFS filesystem is read-only.