A huge issue with a shared ntfs partition between Arch and Win8.1

piotroxp · 2013-12-15 13:59:45

Dear Community,
I've recently had to install 8.1 in order for my CAD/CAM software to work. I've a PC with two drives, a 64G OCZ SSD and a 300G HDD. The motherboard is BIOS based, and both filesystems are MBR. I've had Arch rootfs on the SSD for a long time, thus I've created three partitions on the 300G drive, one for windows, one for ext4-/home and one for ntfs-/dropbox, which is designed to be a ntfs-3g filesystem that is supposed to be shared between the operating systems. I've already done the same thing on my laptop, but the difference is that it was done on a single drive. And now the catch - Windows Explorer does not see the /dropbox partition, however it is visible in the management software (right click on my computer, then manage, and then drives or something alike). Plus, using the drive manager, I cannot assign the drive a name - the option is blacked out. I've noticed that the drives were visible on the first launch of Windows, afterwards I've launched linux in order to set up Dropbox, afterwards the drives were not visible in windows anymore. I shall post screens of the situation and the partition table as soon as I get back home.

I don't really know what logs or info should I post here in order to properly diagnose the issue, so I'd like a helping hand. I've noticed that similair issues are widespread within the ubuntu community, however, none of the resources I've found yielded a working solution. I'd like to methodically get to the bottom of this. Thanks in advance!

graysky · 2013-12-15 14:03:16

You've included a lot of superfluous info in that post.... I'm not sure what your problem is... in a sentence, summarize the problem. If it's NTFS related, what happens if you create the NTFS stuff under windows and then boot into Linux and set it up there?

piotroxp · 2013-12-15 14:15:17

Sure thing,
The problem is that Linux sees the shared partition, and windows is "blind" to the partition. Blind in the sense that I cannot access or see the partition from Windows Explorer, but the partition is visible but not manageable in the Drive Manager of Windows. As soon as I get back home I'll be able to upload some actual screenshots.

Sorry for the aux info, it's kinda of walk in the dark for me.

Last edited by piotroxp (2013-12-15 14:16:13)

graysky · 2013-12-15 14:19:49

1) Backup the data on the partition
2) Boot to windows and delete the partition
3) Create a new one in windows and verify that windows can see/use it
4) Boot into Linux and setup the partition using the ntfs-3g driver
5) Restore the data

piotroxp · 2013-12-15 14:27:16

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll try it out and report back, probably with more data.

ANOKNUSA · 2013-12-15 14:44:29

Have you assigned a drive letter to the partition in Windows Partition Manager? Windows won't mount it otherwise; this is automatically done when formatting a partition in Windows, but I don't think it's possible with ntfs-3g.

piotroxp · 2013-12-15 14:55:31

I've tried to assign the drive letter, but unfortunately I couldn't. Thats the real issue here. As soon as I reformat the partition in windows I'll report back.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-12-15 13:59:45

A huge issue with a shared ntfs partition between Arch and Win8.1

#2 2013-12-15 14:03:16

Re: A huge issue with a shared ntfs partition between Arch and Win8.1

#3 2013-12-15 14:15:17

Re: A huge issue with a shared ntfs partition between Arch and Win8.1

#4 2013-12-15 14:19:49

Re: A huge issue with a shared ntfs partition between Arch and Win8.1

#5 2013-12-15 14:27:16

Re: A huge issue with a shared ntfs partition between Arch and Win8.1

#6 2013-12-15 14:44:29

Re: A huge issue with a shared ntfs partition between Arch and Win8.1

#7 2013-12-15 14:55:31

Re: A huge issue with a shared ntfs partition between Arch and Win8.1

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