Note: Feel free to ask questions; I’m here to help and learn..
Today I feel so excited after writing my first boot script for my new Fedora 7 (Moonshine). The script is simple and all it does is mount Windows NTFS File systems on startup so that you can access and write your windows partition while using your linux.
So far, it was impossible to write to NTFS (because of some highly despised copyright issues from..euhh..ok)
With my workaround, you will be able to:
1) Boot on your linux machine and use it as usual,
2) Access and write your NTFS partition (containing Windows XP/Vista),
3) Worry not about mouting procedures.
All, you have to do is read carefully my artcle, follow it step-by-step, and sit back and relax.
Prerequisites:
I know, prereqs aren’t nice when all the simple steps are just below. Anyway, pass this test first and you are all done. However, don’t worry about googling for the prereq tools; they are all here:
Redhat Enterprise Linux 5 Packages
(Sorry for using rapidshare.com; I lack sponsorship -_-‘ )
You need:
1) Fuse (a software that interacts with the userspace)
2) the ntfs-3g fuse plug-in.
Step1:
Create a folder. You will access that folder in linux just like you type C:/ in windows to list the contents of wherever Windows and its Documents and Settings etc are located.
mkdir /mnt/windows
Step2:
Extract the fuse_complete.fc7.tar.gz file to /opt/temp. Go into the directory where you have save the file (suppose it is on the Desktop, do a cd /home/myname/Desktop). Then, issue these commands:
su mkdir /opt/temp tar -xzf fuse_complete.fc7.tar.gz /opt/temp
Install fuse and ntfs-3g
cd /opt/temp rpm -Uvh * --force --nodeps
Step3:
Now that you have installed Fuse and the NTFS plug-in, you have to configure Fedora such that it mounts the NTFS partition on each boot. The procedure is simple. I have written a simple script to do that:
#!/bin/bash
# Created by Shailen Sobhee
# chkconfig: 012345 99 02
# description: Mounts NTFS on startup
case $1 in
*)
echo “Mounting Pirated Windows XP NTFS Filesystem to /mnt/windows”
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows
;;
esac
#End of boot script
The script is called mntntfs and its located in /opt/temp. To allow Fedora to use the boot script, you have to copy it in the /etc/rc.d/init.d folder and run the following commands:
cp /opt/temp/mntntfs /etc/rc.d/init.d cd /etc/rc.d/init.d /sbin/chkconfig --add mntntfs chmod +x mntntfs
Step4:
That’s it!! Reboot and check if fuse-ntfs works. Go to /mnt/windows to see if your windows has loaded.
Step5:
If the folder has not been mounted, then you are probably using another medium, other that ‘sda1’ that I used in my script. In that case, you will have to check that manually:
Try one of these, while checking on another terminal screen if /mnt/windows has been mounted.
mount /dev/sda /mnt/windows
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/windows
mount /dev/hda /mnt/windows
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows
mount /dev/hda2 /mnt/windows
Try other combinations of mediums (sda,hda) to check your NTFS partition medium.
Do the necessary modification in the script:
vi /etc/rc.d/init.d/mntntfs
Have Fun!
And don’t forget to post your comments, so I can improve on this article. Thanks.
Shailen, serving the Open Source World, yet again..
To do: The Newbies’ Guide to NTFS for Linux (Jeff’s recommendation)
Updates:
3 Nov 2007: Minor code modifications/optimisations.
10 Nov 2007: Minor article update /improved explanations.
The procedure is a bit unorganize if may say so. Someone who has less knowledge in linux may have a hard time following the procedure. But overall this is a good resource. Thanks!
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[root@localhost opt]# tar -xzf fuse_complete.fc7.tar.gz /opt/temp
tar: fuse_complete.fc7.tar.gz: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
tar: Child returned status 2
tar: /opt/temp: Not found in archive
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
i got this error wen i tried ur command..wat can i do????
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@Sachin :
What happened here is that you tried to extract fuse_complete.fc7.tar.gz from a location where the tar.gz file was not present. Okay, ill elaborate on this, hold on.
I will first assume that you have created the folder temp in ‘/opt’. You can check that by typing:
cd /opt
ls
You should see the folder temp there. By the way, the ‘ls’ command will list all the directory contents.
Okay, let’s come back to your problem. To extract the tar.gz file, you need to know where it is. Suppose you downloaded it and saved it on your desktop, then the path to the file is something like:
/home/sachin/Desktop/fuse_complete.fc7.tar.gz
All you have to do is go in that directory.
cd /home/sachin/Desktop/
You might wish to do an ‘ls’ here to ensure the tar.gz file is really here.
Then, issue the command that initially didn’t work:
tar -xzf fuse_complete.fc7.tar.gz /opt/temp
Let me know how it is going. I will update my article so that people don’t get this problem again.
Kind regards,
Shailen
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hey the problem is am not able to access the temp folder in opt dont know y?…. its says no such file or directory found…. u can see the output here wen i give ls it shows temp but not wen i go into cd /temp….
[root@localhost opt]# ls
apache-tomcat-6.0.14 fuse_complete.fc7 NCTUns-4.0 temp
[root@localhost opt]# cd /temp
bash: cd: /temp: No such file or directory
[root@localhost opt]#
anyways thanks for the reply n hope i will get this problem solved soon… am a beginner to linux.. sorry to trouble u… 🙂
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I am afraid this comment is far too delayed now, but oh well, just for the record….
@Sachin: You are trying to change the active directory to /temp, which does not exist. You need to change to /opt/temp. If you are already within opt folder, all you need to do is issue a “cd temp” command, without the slash in front of the folder name. You can write “cd t” and then hit tab for the terminal to complete the name for you. These autocompletion tricks come in handy to save typing time.
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@Salvador : Thanks
@sachin: Issuing cd /temp will look for temp in the root folder which is ‘/’
However, if you are currently in /opt, and you issue just ‘cd temp’ (without the / and the quotes here), you are in the folder.
Kind regards,
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Btw, Fedora 8 has full read-write support for NTFS and automatically mounts the partitions at startup which come in quite handy.
If you are still on Fedora 7, you can use my fuse packages, and you may aslso wish to upgrade them using Yum updater ( I use Yum Extender aka Yumex here).
If you have a good bandwidth, do consider downloading Fedora 8 which is really nice and beautiful. Sadly they don’t have canonical to distribute the DVDs freely.
Canonical is charitable organisation that distributes free Ubuntu CDs all over the world.
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hi,
i’ve two sata hdds in my pentium d with 512mb ram. i’m using win xp (ntfs) on my sata0 as primary and fedora8 as the alternate with grub (default xp). the other sata hdd has two partitions d and e with data on them. my friends use xp for their work while i use both xp and fedora8.
till recently, i could access the xp having downloaded and configured ntfs-3g 1.516 along with fuse binary and libraries. but one fine day, i was thrown these errors when i tried to mount the xp drives in my /home/baL directory.
[root@localhost baL]# mount /home/baL/d
mount: special device /dev/sdb5 does not exist
[root@localhost baL]# mount /home/baL/e
mount: special device /dev/sdb6 does not exist
[root@localhost baL]# mount /home/baL/c
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to startup volume: Invalid argument
Failed to mount ‘/dev/sda1′: Invalid argument
The device ‘/dev/sda1′ doesn’t have a valid NTFS.
Maybe you selected the wrong device? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/hda, not /dev/hda1)? Or the other way around?
the same error message shows up during the fedora bootup automount. (/etc/fstab contains the reqd lines). i even updated ntfs-3g to 1.2712 but the same errors show up. booting into xp is working well and fine. and i can also very well use ext2fs within xp to access my fedora8. but accessing xp ntfs from within fedora8 has proved futile.
i sure don’t know what has happened. i’ve to have access to my xp system because i use wine extensively testing 32bit win software in linux.
i’d appreciate any help on this. thanx in advance,
sincerely,
balaji
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hey i get this error when i try to add chkconfig
[root@localhost init.d]# /sbin/chkconfig –add mntntfs
service mntntfs does not support chkconfig
plz help me
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Hi, I did the first 2 steps sucessefuly, but it doesn’t create the file mntntfs s anyone can help me?
now I’m in this step: cp /opt/temp/mntntfs /etc/rc.d/init.d, so, I can’t go on just because it doesn’t create de mntntfs fle.
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