Hands on: It’s all write now

Mounting NTFS
If you want to use the kernel driver or you do not have ntfsprogs, you can mount an NTFS partition using the normal mount command:

$ sudo mount /dev/hda2 /mnt/xp

As above, this provides read-only support and makes all files readable by root only. To allow read-only access to anyone, add ‘-o umask=0’ to the mount command.

To use the more recent driver and get some safe writing support, use ntfsmount instead. Some distributions may need the ‘fuse’ kernel module loading first; run ‘modprobe fuse’ as root to do this. This step isn’t necessary with Ubuntu Dapper or Edgy versions. The ntfsmount command is almost identical to the standard mount:

$ sudo ntfsmount /dev/hda2 /mnt/xp

Since the filesystem is mounted as read-write, use the ‘-o uid=xxx’ option to mount under your own id; you can run the ‘id’ command to find your own numeric id. On most systems the first created user has an id of 1000.

The ntfsmount command offers some safe writing support but it is far from complete. Modifying an existing file will always work; creating and deleting files can sometimes fail. When a failure occurs it is because the driver cannot guarantee safety; no harm is ever done to the filesystem.

These restrictions do certainly limit the usefulness of the driver, but if safety is required above all, it is still a good step forward. As with the kernel driver, there is never a problem with reading files.

Should you want Linux to mount an NTFS filesystem automatically at boot time, add an entry to the file /etc/fstab. Be careful editing this file as any damage could cause the system not to boot correctly. The dmask and fmask options allow read and write to all users; use the uid option as shown above with the mount command in order to restrict access to one user.