Re: Making NTFS writeable without recompiling kernel

From: Andy Fraser (andyfraser31_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 05/19/04 

Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 13:56:49 +0100

In comp.os.linux.setup, Markus uttered these immortal words:

> Hi, I'm using Debian testing with kernel 2.6.3 on a dualbooting Windows
> XP System. The Data Partition is NTFS and should be writable by both
> OS's. The "Out of the Box" Debian Kernel 2.6.3 has builtin readable
> support for NTFS. Does anyone know how I can change the default read
> support to write support without me having to rebuild the complete
> Kernel? Could it be possible to load the NTFS module with a special
> "write" switch?
>
> Thanks for any Help,

I doubt that you'll be able to add NTFS write support without re-compiling
the kernel. It's almost trivial with Debian though.

BTW I found this in the help for kernel 2.6.6:

<quote>
NTFS write support (NTFS_RW)

This enables the partial, but safe, write support in the NTFS driver.

The only supported operation is overwriting existing files, without
changing the file length. No file or directory creation, deletion or
renaming is possible. Note only non-resident files can be written to
so you may find that some very small files (<500 bytes or so) cannot
be written to.

While we cannot guarantee that it will not damage any data, we have
so far not received a single report where the driver would have
damaged someones data so we assume it is perfectly safe to use.

Note: While write support is safe in this version (a rewrite from
scratch of the NTFS support), it should be noted that the old NTFS
write support, included in Linux 2.5.10 and before (since 1997),
is not safe.

This is currently useful with TopologiLinux. TopologiLinux is run
on top of any DOS/Microsoft Windows system without partitioning your
hard disk. Unlike other Linux distributions TopologiLinux does not
need its own partition. For more information see
<http://topologi-linux.sourceforge.net/>

It is perfectly safe to say N here.
</quote>

I believe there are other NTFS drivers available. Try Google. 

-- 
Andy.

Relevant Pages

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