Arch Linux

oscar.cambieri

Member

Registered: 2007-03-12

Posts: 15

NTFS read-write for external hard disk

Hello.
I just want to share this. I have an external usb hard disk with 2 partitions, one NTFS and the other FAT; I use XFCE and Thunar with Volman to automatically mount and open plugged devices. I don't want to put fixed fstab entries for my external device when I can manage them dynamically with hal. I had the problem that when I plugged my external hard disk the fat partition was regularly opened and available read/write for the regular user, but the ntfs partition was protected and only the root user could access it. I have ntfs-3g installed and discovered from ubuntu setup that adding a configuration file in /etc/hal/fdi/policy allow to automatically mount the NTFS partition read-write for regular users. So if you want this behavior too, just add a file called (for example)  10-ntfs-policy.fdi to the  /etc/hal/fdi/policy directory with this content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
<!-- mount ntfs volume with the ntfs-3g driver to enable write support -->
    <device>
        <match key="volume.fstype" string="ntfs">
            <match key="@block.storage_device:storage.hotpluggable" bool="true">
                <merge key="volume.fstype" type="string">ntfs-3g</merge>
                <merge key="volume.policy.mount_filesystem" type="string">ntfs-3g</merge>
                <append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">locale=</append>
            </match>
        </match>
    </device>
</deviceinfo>

I think it should work also with gnome and kde, but not tested yet because at the moment I have only xfce installed. Hope this helps. Greetings.

Oscar

billy

Member

From: Slovenia

Registered: 2006-09-13

Posts: 164

Re: NTFS read-write for external hard disk

you should put this in wiki .

oscar.cambieri

Member

Registered: 2007-03-12

Posts: 15

Re: NTFS read-write for external hard disk

Ok, thanks.
I'll do it if someone will confirm that this works...

:-)
O.

Zerathidune

Member

Registered: 2007-02-25

Posts: 102

Re: NTFS read-write for external hard disk

Works great on my machine. I'm using KDE.

oscar.cambieri

Member

Registered: 2007-03-12

Posts: 15

Re: NTFS read-write for external hard disk

Ok... others?
Could somebody check if it works with gnome?

Thanks

axelgenus

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2007-04-15

Posts: 100

Website

Re: NTFS read-write for external hard disk

On my system it automatically uses NTFS-3g if it's available... I didn't do anything...

EDIT: By the way, I use GNOME... it works perfectly.

Last edited by axelgenus (2007-05-03 18:33:17)

raymano

Member

Registered: 2006-10-13

Posts: 357

Website

Re: NTFS read-write for external hard disk

Works here too. Thanks!

---

FaunOS: Live USB/DVD Linux Distro: http://www.faunos.com

RabidWolf

Member

From: WI,USA

Registered: 2007-01-20

Posts: 31

Website

Re: NTFS read-write for external hard disk

I've been looking for a simple solution like this for some time now, thanx a bunch !

mic64

Member

Registered: 2005-03-03

Posts: 173

Re: NTFS read-write for external hard disk

hmm doesn´t work here.
Is there a special way like hal has to be started or so.
it ist just in my daemons list in rc.conf

Last edited by mic64 (2007-05-13 13:06:06)

oscar.cambieri

Member

Registered: 2007-03-12

Posts: 15

Re: NTFS read-write for external hard disk

What exactly doesn't work? Doesn't mount the partition at all or do you have permission problems?
I don't have arch here installed and I can't check, but I think that having hal in daemon list and ntfs-3g installed should be enough; try to add your user to the storage group and let us know if it works.
Thanks to all the people that reported their experience. I plan to put this in the wiki soon, when I'll be realy sure not to miss some important step.
Greetings.
O.

mic64

Member

Registered: 2005-03-03

Posts: 173

Re: NTFS read-write for external hard disk

thats the errormessahe I´m getting
I am in the storage group

oscar.cambieri

Member

Registered: 2007-03-12

Posts: 15

Re: NTFS read-write for external hard disk

I'm sure that I had that problem too a long time ago, but now I can't remember how I solved it, I'm very sorry. I'll try to remember and to write here the solution, but at the moment can't check it becouse I don't have arch installed. Anyway I think your problem is not related with the trick that's the subject of this thread.
O.

Malo

Member

Registered: 2006-12-02

Posts: 43

Re: NTFS read-write for external hard disk

Hi.. i've tried this trick but it doesn't work.. ntfs partition are still mounted with ntfs and not ntfs-3g..

Malo

Member

Registered: 2006-12-02

Posts: 43

Re: NTFS read-write for external hard disk

Mmmm... can't start HAL also manually..
this is dmesg output:

NTFS-fs warning (device sdb3): parse_options(): Option utf8 is no longer supported, using option nls=utf8. Please use option nls=utf8 in the future and make sure utf8 is compiled either as a module or into the kernel.
NTFS volume version 3.1.

Sole

Member

Registered: 2007-04-09

Posts: 42

Re: NTFS read-write for external hard disk

Thank you this worked for me on xfce, didn't need to mess around with fstab like I used to.

thats the errormessahe I´m getting
I am in the storage group

As for this error even though I'm a little bit late, I had the same problem too when I'm trying to mount any ntfs external volumes, but I found the solution from this blog:

http://jefferyfernandez.id.au/2007/07/2 … f-volumes/

Hope that helps anyone having this problem.