NTFS help needed

DJiNN · posted: 2009-04-30 17:58

Hi all. __{{emoticon}}__

Just updated antiX8 (upgrade/dist-upgrade) and all seems fine so far, with the exception of my NTFS partitions (of which i have 2, that i use a LOT!) __{{emoticon}}__

At the moment, i'm using the"Force" option in fstab to mount these at boot time, and this seems to work well enough. But i'm aware that it's a somewhat brutish fix, and i'm sure there's a better option available. Has anyone here had the same problem and found a more elegant solution? If so, would you be so kind as to share your fstab line for the NTFS drive(s)?
All help, pointers, links etc are very much appreciated. __{{emoticon}}__

Also, on a related note, now the only way that i can mount USB keydrives, is as"Root". Before the upgrade, i just plugged in and they popped up in pcmanfm, then when i clicked on the relevant drive, it mounted without problems. Now, the only way that i can do this, is by running pcmanfm as root and mounting that way. __{{emoticon}}__
Again, anyone else had this problem or know the fix?

Thanks to one & all for taking the time to read this, and for any help/advice given. I'd be sooooo lost without you guys! __{{emoticon}}__

DJiNN

plvera · posted: 2009-04-30 18:20

Djinn:

I don't have an answer to your NTFS question since I don't have any NTFS partitions.

However, as to USB drives, I'm not having any problems with pcmanfm. It picks up the usb drives without any problems (rox filer is a little iffy) and I do not have to call up pfmanfm as root. I'm not sure what the difference is.

Pedro

anticapitalista · posted: 2009-04-30 18:22

To get your usb mounting back,

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/lost-usb-devices-t1635.html"
linktext was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/lost-usb-devices-t1635.html"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false
Don't know about ntfs as I don't have any.

plvera · posted: 2009-04-30 21:52

Anti,

thanks for the reminder about the USB problem. I hadn't tested my USB key since I upgraded a few days ago and it was working fine. I discovered that I was having problems with USB afer I upgraded. I changed the file like you suggested, but pcmanfm, though it sees the USB key, it cannot mount it.

any other suggestions?
thanks
Pedro

DJiNN · posted: 2009-05-01 15:30

anti, that worked a treat, many thanks. __{{emoticon}}__

Pedro - sorry to hear that it's still not working. Mine seems to work OK now, but at times it suddenly plays up again for no reason, and i have to logout or reboot for it to work OK again.

Hopefully there'll be a more permanent (secure) fix soon?

DJiNN

eriefisher · posted: 2009-05-01 20:15

For your NTFS partitions, reboot windows and it should correct itself. You may need to reboot twice to clear the bad flag. Usually this happens when windows doesn't shut down correctly but a restart and shut down should clear it.

DJiNN · posted: 2009-05-03 21:50

eriefisher wrote:For your NTFS partitions, reboot windows and it should correct itself. You may need to reboot twice to clear the bad flag. Usually this happens when windows doesn't shut down correctly but a restart and shut down should clear it.

Hi erie, thanks for the info. I've done that when it's happened before, and it works for sure.

But i think this problem runs deeper, for at least a few reasons that i'm aware of.

1: My hard drive (320gb Hitachi in my laptop) index got fubar'd somewhat, probably because i had a go at re-sizing the linux partitions, which reside, along with the Lin swap file, as logical drives on a 30gb extended partition. I ran testdisk, and although it was good and showed me what was wrong, in the end i just deleted/re-created the extended partition, and re-installed antix (Which resulted in a few more problems, but i'll leave them for another post) __{{emoticon}}__ ........

The problem still persists somewhat and my first thought was that it was something to do with an apt-get upgrade (Which i tend to do on every fresh distro i install). So, with this fresh install, i haven't done an upgrade yet, and there are a few problems that still persist, one of which is mounting the ntfs partitions. I've changed the relevant lines in fstab to"ntfs-3g force" and that seems to work OK, mounting them at boot etc, and all seems well. But, it's not 100%, and quite often i boot up, log in, and they're still not available (from a normal pcmanfm session that is) BUT... they will mount if i fire up a root pcmanfm. Click on the relevant icon in the root pcmanfm and they mount no problem.... and of course i can then access them from a normal pcmanfm window.

It also tells me that it's not anything to do with the upgrade. __{{emoticon}}__

Also, sometimes, when i change something in fstab (using root leafpad) although i save the changes, when i reboot, the settings are back to what they originally were??? That's a bit strange. __{{emoticon}}__ I'm just about to reboot the fresh install, so i'll see how it goes from there.

Antix continues to impress me more & more with every release!! LOVE IT!! __{{emoticon}}__

DJiNN

dark-D · posted: 2009-05-03 22:56

DJiNN when i first join antiX my ntfs partitions gived an error about permissions when mounting. my solution was to mount them in another directory than /mnt/sda*. /home/user/partition with the flags auto,users,force. also if i remember correctly after i mounted them with force and use them once after i changed the flags by removing force they still worked. what is wrong with using force flag? is there a downside?. HTH

edit: stupid question from me. do you add in fstab the mount lines of the partitions above"# Dynamic entries below", wright?

DJiNN · posted: 2009-05-05 22:21

ICE-M wrote:DJiNN when i first join antiX my ntfs partitions gived an error about permissions when mounting. my solution was to mount them in another directory than /mnt/sda*. /home/user/partition with the flags auto,users,force. also if i remember correctly after i mounted them with force and use them once after i changed the flags by removing force they still worked. what is wrong with using force flag? is there a downside?. HTH

edit: stupid question from me. do you add in fstab the mount lines of the partitions above"# Dynamic entries below", wright?

Hi ICE-M, long time no chat? __{{emoticon}}__

Thanks for the info. I don't have a problem with using the force flag really.... it certainly seems to work fine, i just thought there may be a more elegant way of doing it? __{{emoticon}}__ I'm not at the antiX machine at the moment, but as far as the fstab entries go, i just left everything where it is and changed the lines of the ntfs partitions to reflect the"Force" setting. Does that make sense?

DJiNN

dark-D · posted: 2009-05-05 23:05

long time no chat indeed __{{emoticon}}__
the fstab should look something like this:

Code: Select all

# Pluggable devices are handled by uDev, they are not in fstab
/dev/sda3 / ext3 defaults,noatime 1 1
/dev/sda4 swap swap sw,pri=1 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
procbususb /proc/bus/usb usbfs devmode=0666 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0622 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
/dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 ntfs-3g auto,users,force 0 0
/dev/sda2 /mnt/sda2 ntfs-3g auto,users,force 0 0 
# Dynamic entries below
/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,users,exec,ro 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,users,exec,ro 0 0
/dev/cdrom1 /media/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 noauto,users,exec,ro 0 0
/dev/scd1 /media/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 noauto,users,exec,ro 0 0

with the ntfs lines above"# Dynamic entries below". because bellow of that, fstab doesn't remember them on reboot. the thing is pcmanfm mounts the partitions when you click on the icons in the left side panel(in rox as i remember they get mounted when you click on their folders in /mnt or /media) so they get mounted but you get the error in normal use(i suspect this a microsoft doing) but in root they work. also pcmanfm and rox add the mount lines bellow"# Dynamic entries below" that's why i think the fstab changes on you.

HTH

DJiNN · posted: 2009-05-06 19:29

That helps a lot ICE-M, and thanks for the info.... much appreciated. __{{emoticon}}__

I find it strange that when the fstab is first created, it puts ALL of the other drives (apart from root & home) BELOW the dynamic entries part....???? When they should be ABOVE yes? LOL!! Anyway, i'm just going to reboot & see what happens. WIth a little luck all will now be well......

Kudos to you Ice.

DJiNN