Hi !

Can Mandrake 10 read from and write to a NTFS-partition?

I think you have to compile a new kernel to do that... Mandrakes stock kernel doesn't have NTFS writing support switched on.

i don't know if you need any extra software or not (possably do)
but on my install of mandrake 10 it works fine with NTFS partitions. they are access via the /mnt/ area

if you go into konqueror or Nautilas (or whatever file browser you use) and type in /mnt/ in the address bar at the top you should get a list of things including floppy cd etc...
in this list there will be (hopefully):
win_c (this is the first partition on a hard disk that is NTFS or FAT32)
win_d (this is the second partition on a hard disk that is NTFS or FAT32)
win_c2 (this is the first partition on a second hard disk that is NTFS or FAT32)

hope this helps

Write support is better than it was thanks to 2.6 kernels, but I'd be careful to back up what's on the NTFS partition anyways, just in case the whole thing gets botched. I've had good luck so far...

Thanks for your replies!

If so, I think it's best to keep my Windows FAT 32 partitions and not change them into NTFS before installing Mandrake 10. I'm new to Linux and don't know so much about compiling.

i heard from the gentoo users (so this could be why ) that the 2.6.7 kernel can successfullly read an write w.o damage.

is this true? or would it be safer to use WINE to use the ntfs driver from windows?

I can only make my basic recommendation - beside the system partitions, one or two storage partitions. I have a large Windows storage partition (due to games, of course, and installer files) and a smaller Linux-version (docs, homepage files, images and installer files). I've put mp3s and movie files on the Windows partition, as they don't need to be writable anyway.
I've installed quite a few Linux systems, and occasionally I reinstall the whole damn thing. [off the record]Sometimes I experiment above my Linux ability to troubleshoot...[/off the record] Windows gets slower, things get weird after a while. Then having separate storage partitions which include one's Home-dir comes in handy.

This Gentoo user hasn't wriotten to his NTFS partition since he used Mandrake 10, about 6 weeks ago. Mandy was my only OS for about 6 months (small hard drive problem - my son likes "the penguin games"). I did it once or twice. The claim is that 2.6 has write support. A clarification: the NTFS driver has has experimental support for a very long time - that predates kernel 2.6. The linux-ntfs homepage has information that says write support is possible but still not completely safe for 2.4.20. I don't have need to write to mine often at all, so I can't tell you if this is true. If you just want to read from it, don't worry, read! You'll be fine.

I'm not sure what wine can do. As someone who has been a cook for many years, I can tell you from doing that, if you add too many ingredients to your recile, you end up with a mess. So, unless you have scoured the wine docs and know everything there is to know about using it, I'd not even try to figure out how to do that. If the driver for the kernel - the most basic component, which would be used any way - doesn't do the trick, there is no trick to do.

I hope that I've made sense.