linuxgeek: Re: [LINUX_Newbies] NTFS, Permissions

On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 14:44, Neal
<iamtheloraxispeakforthetrees@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hey again folks.
>
> Using Debian Lenny Gnome

I haven't used Debian in years, to take this with a grain of salt...

> I get a "Permissions Denied" or "Invalid mount option" when I try to access (mount?) other
> drive partitions. They happen to be NTFS.

Most all distros i know of now have a working NTFS driver for
accessing the drives, but just in case, check in /lib/modules/<kernel
version>/kernel/fs for a directory called ntfs and a module inside
that directory called ntfs.ko.

> How can I enable myself to access/read/write/transfer files on those partitions, from
> Debian?

That depends... they should just mount... but you really need to
provide a copy of the actual error message, not a guess or summation.
That's important. You mentioned two different things, which could
have different causes and fixes.

Since you have NTFS partitons, are these on a machine that you dual
boot between Windows and Linux??

if so, do you shut windows down, or do you suspend to disk(hibernate)?

If you shut windows down properly, then there's one problem, but if
you hibernate the machine, there's an entirely different problem.

To test this, open a terminal.

first type this: fdisk -l

bladernr@asuka:/lib/modules/2.6.27-9-generic/kernel/fs$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for bladernr:

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x66666666

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2611 20972826 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda2 2612 2635 192780 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 2636 2884 2000092+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 2885 19457 133122622+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 2885 19457 133122591 83 Linux

look in that list for a disk that says something like NTFS under
System (I "think" it's there)

in my case, /dev/sda1 (first partition on disk sda) is FAT32
formatted, not NTFS., but you get the point.

So now, pretending that you see a line that looks like this:
/dev/sda1 * 1 2611 20972826 c NTFS

you want to use /dev/sda1

Now you need to mount it. so do the following:

mkdir /media/test
mount /dev/sda1 /media/test

if that fails, try this:

mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /media/test

AND BE SURE that you swap /dev/sda1 for whatever disk/partition you
see listed as NTFS.

If it mounts, you're good. If it fails, then you need to post the
exact error message here.

> If there is any terminal work, please go slow, baby steps. I am not too keen with the
> terminal yet.

To do the first thing I mentioned (looking for the kernel module) the
simple newbie way to do it is this:

open terminal and use the following

cd /lib/modules/<kernel version/kernel/fs/
(kernel version will be a directory inside /lib/modules that matches
the kernel you're running. You can use the command "uname -r" to find
out your kernel version.

so once you get there do a listing of the directory:

ls

which is the same thing (basically) as dir in windows.

look for a directory called ntfs and if you have one, type this:

ls ntfs

and look for a file called ntfs.ko

like this:

bladernr@asuka:~$ cd /lib/modules/2.6.27-9-generic/kernel/fs
bladernr@asuka:/lib/modules/2.6.27-9-generic/kernel/fs$ ls
9p binfmt_aout.ko exportfs hfs lockd nls romfs
adfs binfmt_misc.ko ext2 hfsplus mbcache.ko ntfs smbfs
affs cifs ext3 hpfs minix ocfs2 sysv
afs coda ext4 isofs msdos omfs ubifs
autofs configfs fat jbd ncpfs qnx4 udf
autofs4 dlm freevxfs jbd2 nfs quota_v1.ko ufs
befs ecryptfs fuse jffs2 nfs_common quota_v2.ko vfat
bfs efs gfs2 jfs nfsd reiserfs xfs
bladernr@asuka:/lib/modules/2.6.27-9-generic/kernel/fs$ ls ntfs
ntfs.ko
bladernr@asuka:/lib/modules/2.6.27-9-generic/kernel/fs$

So feel free to ask more questions, especially if this doesn't make
enough sense...

Cheers
Jeff

--

Ogden Nash - "The trouble with a kitten is that when it grows up,
it's always a cat." -
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/o/ogden_nash.html