[How To] Make Mac OS X automount NTFS Drives in read/write mode, Updated to Revision 2.1! Guide on replacing default NTFS mounter Options

[Laik]

antoinef
Great, I'll try your method, it seems to be much more universal. Thanx! If it works for me, I'll update the guide.

daedalus01
I had the same issue, before. I fixed it, by installing the latest NTFS-3g and using "-o default_permissions" in ntfs-3g mount string, which you can see in the guide.

Try reinstalling macfuse, and getting latest ntfs-3g from here. Hope it helps.

[Cliffton Beach]

laik:
Works like a charm. Automount on boot and all.

antoinef:
Perl makes my head hurt Perhaps an easier way to get the volume label is
VOLNAME=`/usr/local/sbin/ntfslabel -n $1`

xtraa:
I haven't had problems with ntfs3g. I've been using it for a half year at least on Linux and it's been flawless. A lot of the problems are probably people not following the guide quite right. Other problems may be due to not getting the script nailed down for all possible cases. Both of those are outside of ntfs-3g's area of responsibility. Once it is called with the correct parameters, it does a fine job of mounting the file system and allowing writes, and has been tested on thousands of machines.

Again, if there are any problems, it is due to the way OSX mounts things. Since disks are detected and mounted asynchronously, they are sometimes assigned a different /dev/diskN node based on how fast devices respond to bus probing. This means we can't rely on a static /etc/fstab file like other *nixes, but need scripts that take parameters (from diskutil or wherever) and give consistent results. Most problems are probably due to we OSX users not getting those scripts just right yet and are not to be laid at the feet of ntfs-3g.

[Laik]

antoinef
Your part or the script worked like a charm, thanx!
Though the variant Cliffton Beach suggests is less geek and also seems to work good

Cliffton Beach
Thank you too! I'll update the guide using your way of getting volume label, and make it a bit more foolproof.

[Cliffton Beach]

VOLNAME=`/usr/local/sbin/ntfslabel -n $1` works well enough for me, but I haven't tested it in the situation antoinef ran into that caused him to write his script. He wrote his script since the volume name isn't always passed as argument 2.

VOLNAME=`/usr/local/sbin/ntfslabel -n $1` will get the correct volume name assuming the device node is passed as argument 1. I don't know if that is the case. If not, something more like his geeky was could be necessary.

Hopefully we can hear back from him on that point. One way or another, the script will get finished up!

[antoinef]

Cliffton Beach
I tried to initialize VOLNAME the way you do it. As you said the script works as long as the device node is passed as argument 1. That is not the case all the time for me. When I mount my Windows partition, it works but has a side effect: this partition doesn't have a label. As a result 'ntfslabel' returns an empty string, ntfs-3g still works when you pass the option '-o volname='. The option is ignored and the partition is labeled using the device node (eg: disk*s*). I prefer to see my partition labeled 'Untitled' rather than the device node.

When I want to mount my enclosure, the first argument is not a device but '-o', so 'ntfslabel' fails and returns -1 and makes the script abort before the 'ntfs-3g' command is invoked. So my drive is not mounted at all.

So I will stick to my way. There is one thing which can be bad about my way. I can't remember if perl is provided natively with Mac OS X or if it is provided with XCode. If the user has to install XCode (couple of GB) just to make the script work, it is really bad. I didn't check but perl could also be installed via fink.

Hope this helps!

[Greg134]

Hi,

Thank you very much for this very usefull HowTo !

With the original mount_ntfs script, I ran into two problems: it did not work for external drives, it did not work when there was space in the volume name.

I solved my problems with the mount_ntfs script below. This may be helpfull to other having similar problems.

Cheers.

CODE

#!/bin/sh
#
# Example of how the script is called by MacOS
# External HD: /sbin/mount_ntfs -o nodev -o noperm -o nosuid /dev/disk3s1 /Volumes/WD 320 GO
# Fixed HD : /sbin/mount_ntfs /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/WINDOWS XP
#

args=$#
MOUNTPOINT=${!args}
VOLNAME=${MOUNTPOINT##*/}
args=$((args-1))
DEVICE=${!args}
/usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g $DEVICE "$MOUNTPOINT" -o default_permissions -o locale=fr_FR.UTF-8 -o volname="$VOLNAME"

[antoinef]

Just a correction about my last post:Even if 'ntfslabel' fails it doesn't make my script abort, but the string returned is an error message, which is not parsable for ntfs-3g.AntoineGreg,Thanks for pointing out that this script won't work with label containing spaces. You only think about it when you run into the problem.I adapted my script to prevent this problem.You totally ignore all the other arguments passed to the script, but do we really need them anyway...I like the way you find the label of the disk not using perl, your way will work for more people. I also tested you script, it works fine for me with my Windows partition and with my external hard drive as well.Antoine

[XanthraX]

laik:
Works like a charm. Automount on boot and all.

Here too. Thanks mate

[KKTK]

Great - it is working! Thanks

[fredperes]

Question:

I can read and write in my ntfs partitions. But...

Sometimes, when I try to copy/paste some files I get the error message: "You don´t have permission do this action" or something like that.

Is there any solution to this? Do I have do start the process again?

Thanks!

[MB-switcher]

There has been a minor update.
iMountIt has the new app icon designed by susumu now and is wrapped in a dmg file (thanks to susumu).
I'm not sure when I'll be able to add new features to iMountIt yet but as soon as there are improvements I'll post here.

Thanks for using iMountIt.

MB-switcher

[Laik]

fredperes
This seem to happen sometimes to some people. The only solution I have by now is reinstall latest macfuse and ntfs-3g packages.

Greg134
Thank you! Used your method to update the guide to rev 2.1. And its only 11 steps now

I'm already thinking of making an installer, so everything is done much with a single double click. That would be great, I think.

[fredperes]

fredperes
This seem to happen sometimes to some people. The only solution I have by now is reinstall latest macfuse and ntfs-3g packages.

Thanks, man!

Will do it.

[nightwalker]

it's working very nicely but is there a way to change the icon of the ntfs icons back to the hard drive icon? right now it's using the network icon for the ntfs drives

[onizuka]

You can use the usual technique to change the icon, command+I to get info on the hard drive, select the icon (it turns blue) and paste whatever icon in place. So just copy one from another hard drive and it will be fine. Works like a charm here.

[nightwalker]

thanks! never knew about that one...i'm new to mac os x but loving it so much

[lekany]

Hi everybody,
Thanks to Laik for all this tuto.
If you still want to use MacFuse and Ntfs-3g, I found this complete french installer on a french site, 2 months ago and used it since.
It will install updated versions of MacFuse + Ntfs-3g, and will automount your ntfs volume. No more terminal code.

This is how i did it:
1- Open the Pack_NTFS-3G_v2.dmg
2- Install the MacFUSE Core package
3- Install the NTFS-3G package
4- Do a Repair Disk Permissions in Disk Utility
5- Then Reboot
6- Unmount your NTFS volume in Disk Utility
7- Restart on a Windows PC (Xp or Vista)
8- Do a "chkdsk" in the cmd (like this: chkdsk g: /f /r ) where g: is your NTFS volume.
9- Unmount your volume with the windows unmonter if it is an external HD, never unplug it as is
10- Reboot on OSX with your Volume plugged
11- and that's it, your volume should appear like a network volume (grey sphere in a cube)

*If you want to uninstall:
- Open the Uninstall NTFS-3G.command in the Pack_NTFS-3G_v2.dmg
- To Uninstall MacFuse type this in the terminal:
sudo /System/Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/uninstall-macfuse-core.sh
- and Reboot

Doing all this of course, as Laik said at the beginning is "at your own risk".
Yes, but nothing is perfect and I think it should be OK. Good luck

[lekany]

I found another great solution for those who don't want to use MacFuse and Ntfs-3g, or having problems and slow downs with NTFS-3G.
- Go here at ntfs-mac.com
- Register and download that latest version.
- Open the .dmg file
- Install the Ntfs for Mac OS X package
- Reboot and there you are.

You can get an older version with this direct one.

Now I'm using it after a Complete Uninstall of the NTFS-3G package;
It really works great : Recognize my NTFS volumes like Windows NT ones, twice as fast as Ntfs-3g, no directory problems,...
And I'm still testing it because it's a beta version.
Try and report.
Have a good day folks.

I don't know if this reply needs to be a new topic.

[Laik]

lekany
Thanx, I'll give it a try now. And I'm sure it will be an excelent new topic.

[BeleiuR]

I have tried it and it DOES NOT work. For some reason now, I cannot even see my external drive and trying to remove the application it give me and error stating:

Uninstallation Failed
"NTFS for Mac OS X 6.0 is not installed."

Do we have any solutions?

I found another great solution for those who don't want to use MacFuse and Ntfs-3g, or having problems and slow downs with NTFS-3G.
- Go here at ntfs-mac.com
- Register and download that latest version.
- Open the .dmg file
- Install the Ntfs for Mac OS X package
- Reboot and there you are.

You can get an older version with this direct one.

Now I'm using it after a Complete Uninstall of the NTFS-3G package;
It really works great : Recognize my NTFS volumes like Windows NT ones, twice as fast as Ntfs-3g, no directory problems,...
And I'm still testing it because it's a beta version.
Try and report.
Have a good day folks.

I don't know if this reply needs to be a new topic.