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IM-06: read and write permission on Windows partition

As you probably know, there are two filesystems commonly used on Windows: Fat32 and NTFS. The first part of this FAQ covers Fat32 problems only. See the second part for information on NTFS support.

I use VI to edit files via the command lines. HERE is what you have to know about VI.

Open a console, login as root and edit /etc/fstab. Look at the line where your Windows filesystem is. That should be something like this

Now modify the above line so that it look like this one (ie, add umask=0,quiet after defaults)

Now save and quit the file. Finally, remount (umount and mount the partition) by typing

If you get umount: /mnt/win_c: device is busy, check at XMMS or Konqueror. Something is within /mnt/win_c and prevents you to umount the partition[1]. If that worked, you should now have read and write access by all users.

Note that you can organise your /etc/fstab file so that it look like THIS one (user Cannonfodder). You can put spaces between each line. The ONLY thing that matters is the order of things within one line. The order is

# <fs> <mountpoint> <type> <opts> <dump> <fsck>

Look at 'man mount' and 'man fstab' for further details about that.

Reference:
man mount
man fstab

[1] More info about solving that particular problem at: 'IM-07: Umount says "device is busy"'

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IM-06: read and write permission on Windows partition
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Accessing your NTFS Partition on your computer

Windows NTFS support is available for Mandrake users. However, due to constant undocumented changes to the NTFS file system, this support is read-only. This means that you may access your files on your NTFS partition, but may not modify files or folders.

Here is how to obain access to your NTFS partition.

1. Open a console,
2. Type su to login to root as superuser.
3. Edit the file /etc/fstab.
4. Look for the entry related to your NTFS partition. If you do not have this line, you may create one.

The entry should look like this:



If you do not know the location of your NTFS partition, you can open a second console, su to root, and type diskdrake. Look for your NTFS partition and note the device name. E.g. hda1.

5. Save the file and quit.
6. Now go to your mount point. In the entry above, it is /mnt/win_c. This is where you would access your files. If you do not have the mount point, then you will need to createit using the mkdir command.
7. When ready, type



This command will insure that all entries in the /etc/fstab are mounted. Go to your mount point and verify that you can see your NTFS files.

If you would like to make changes to your files on a NTFS partition, you can do one of the following:

1. Convert your NTFS to FAT32.
2. Make another partition and format it as FAT32. Use this partition to transfer files. This still means you can not change your NTFS partition files.

Reference:
man mount
man fstab