ntfs-3g in debian etch amd64... ?

[Dozer]

New problem

I have a 320gb hdd connected and "seen" by my system, but it's "leftovers" from my previous XP pro install, which no longer exists (wiped off the 80gb drive which debian is currently installed on).

I would like to access my NTFS storage drive, however, when attempting to install ntfs-3g, i am greeted with dependency issues, which i'm unable to resolve by relying on debian etch stable resources.

After many hours of googling around, it seems i have 2 options.

1) wipe the disk and reformat it, losing over 200gb worth of "cool stuff"

or...

2) mix in some packages from testing/sid

What should i do? i really don't want to use option 1, and it seems option 2 would be "disrecommended" for a "newbie" like myself.

However, i need that data (well, more "want"), and it seems the only option is to get some packages from testing/sid, so that the dependencies can be satisfied, and i would then be able to install and use ntfs-3g, allowing me to access that huge 2nd hdd and all the data on it, instead of wiping it.

anyone want to help me tackle this issue? be my guest

[valemon]

So, i don't understand, you just want to read data from your 320gb disk or you want write permission too? If you also want write permissions what dependencies are you missing?

[Dozer]

I'd prefer write permissions as well, but would settle for read-only if the former doesn't work out for some reason.

I read about a newly released, claimed "stable" version of ntfs-3g for amd64, and wanted to give it a try, but as it wasn't available through the stock/standard debian 4.0 etch repositories, i decided to try to download/install it manually, since i was unsure about mixing packages from other versions of debian, and wasn't sure how to go about using apt-get or synaptic for aquiring packages from other versions.

So i downloaded it, cd'd to the manually downloaded .deb package (ntfs-3g_1.516-1_amd64.deb) and did a:

dpkg -i ntfs-3g_1.516-1_amd64.deb

and recieved this output:

Unpacking ntfs-3g (from ntfs-3g_1.516-1_amd64.deb) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of ntfs-3g:
ntfs-3g depends on libc6 (>= 2.5-5); however:
Version of libc6 on system is 2.3.6.ds1-13.
ntfs-3g depends on libfuse2 (>= 2.6); however:
Version of libfuse2 on system is 2.5.3-4.4.
ntfs-3g depends on libntfs-3g2; however:
Package libntfs-3g2 is not installed.
dpkg: error processing ntfs-3g (--install):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
ntfs-3g


The problem i suppose, is that the versions of libc6 and libfuse2 aren't high enough to satisfy the dependencies, and are the newest versions available on debian etch 4.0 "stable" repos. So I need to get newer versions of those somehow.

Should i attempt to manually install each dependency? Or should i add testing/and/or/unstable repos to my sources, and allow the package manager to resolve the depenencies itself?

*edit:* I went back and tried the manual approach... ntfs-3g depends on libc6 >=2.5-5+, libfuse2 >=2.6, and libntfs-3g2... however, i'm unable to install libntfs-3g2, also due to a libc6 conflict...

dpkg -i libc6_2.5-11_amd.deb

gives this error:

dpkg: regarding libc6_2.5-11_amd64.deb containing libc6:
libc6 conflicts with tzdata (<< 2007e-2)
tzdata (version 2007b-1) is installed.
dpkg: error processing libc6_2.5-11_amd64.deb (--install):
conflicting packages - not installing libc6
Errors were encountered while processing:
libc6_2.5-11_amd64.deb

so... somehow this conflict between libc6_2.5-11_amd64 and "tzdata (<<2007e-2)" is preventing a high enough version of libc6 from being installed.

[netstrider]

Just download ntfs-3g-source extract the .tgz file and compile it. You might require fuse if you don't already have that on your system.

To extract: tar -zxvf filename.tgz
To configure, compile and install:
./configure
make
(then as root) make install

After ntfs-3g has been successfully compiled you can mount your Windows partition as such: (being root)
mkdir /mnt/Windows
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/Windows -o defaults,umask=0 (or hda1 if it's IDE, it might also be sda 1,2,3 or even sdb1,2,3 etc.) For a detailed list of your HDD's input the command, lspci as root in terminal to see which are your NTFS drives.

Hopefully this helps, good luck!

[Dozer]

That got it! Thanx

After compiling FUSE and ntfs-3g, and using the above posted commands, I now have my storage drive mounted, with read/write access.

*but*

i did get a warning message, surrounded by a box of asterisks, with this url in it: NTFS-3G Read/Write Driver Support

Should i be concerned? I don't plan on having to unmount this drive any time soon, but there was a warning about it possibly being unsafe to do so, in the event that unmounting the drive is necessary. The recommended solution is to upgrade my kernel to 2.6.20+

[devils casper]

Should i be concerned? I don't plan on having to unmount this drive any time soon, but there was a warning about it possibly being unsafe to do so, in the event that unmounting the drive is necessary.

if you are mounting partitions manually, then you should unmount those before shutdown or reboot.

if you have edited /etc/fstab file and machine auto-mounts partitions at boot up, you can ignore that warning safely. Linux will unmount those partitions itself during shutdown/reboot procedure.

[Dozer]

Hmm...

Ok, so this drive is local, is connected, is recognized by the system, is manually mounted w/ ntfs-3g... but when i go to "Computer" in gnome file browser, i see

Userspace
Desktop
File System
Floppy Drive
DRIVEII (<-- this is the storage drive i had to mount manually, and the same label i gave it from windows)

If i try to open it from that menu, i get a warning popup box with this text:

Unable to mount the selected volume.

libhal-storage.c 1401 : info: called libhal_free_dbus_error but dbuserror was not set.

process 30283: applications must not close shared connections - see dbus_connection_close() docs. this is a bug in the application.

error: device /dev/sdb1 is already mounted to /mnt/windows

error: could not execute pmount

This warning popup was here before any fiddling w/ ntfs-3g, minus the last two error lines about it being already mounted.

Is there any way to get the drive mounted so i can simply access it as "DRIVEII" from the menu? or is the ntfs-3g method the only way currently?

[devils casper]

Is there any way to get the drive mounted so i can simply access it as "DRIVEII" from the menu? or is the ntfs-3g method the only way currently?

post the contents of /etc/fstab file and output of 'sudo fdisk -l' command.

[Dozer]

/etc/fstab:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
/dev/sda1       /               ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro 0       1
/dev/sda9       /home           ext3    defaults        0       2
/dev/sda8       /tmp            ext3    defaults        0       2
/dev/sda5       /usr            ext3    defaults        0       2
/dev/sda6       /var            ext3    defaults        0       2
/dev/sda7       none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/hda        /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0
/dev/fd0        /media/floppy0  auto    rw,user,noauto  0       0

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 82.3 GB, 82348277760 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 10011 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1         608     4883728+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2             609       10011    75529597+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5             609        1216     4883728+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6            1217        1824     4883728+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7            1825        2432     4883728+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8            2433        3040     4883728+  83  Linux
/dev/sda9            3041       10011    55994526   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 620181 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1      620181   312571192+   7  HPFS/NTFS

[devils casper]

execute this

su
sudo mkdir /media/DRIVEII
nano /etc/fstab

add this line :

/dev/sdb1   /media/DRIVEII  ntfs-3g  defaults,umask=0 0 0

save file and execute 'mount -a' OR reboot.
DRIVEII is inside /media. you can create mount anywhere you want.