[SOLVED] Access Windows drives with write access

[blueagle78]

I am dual booting OpenSuse 11.2 and Windows 7 both 64bit on my PC. I've got VMware workstation installed on both. I've got few virtual machines which were all created in Windows VMware and they're all stored on a separate partition. I can access this partition and all other NTFS partition from Suse but with read-only permissions. That means I can't run any of these virtual machines from Suse VMware. Is there any possible way to make all these drives writeable from Suse? I'm really hoping someone would be able to help me. I've got a lot of googling and have even searched this forum but without any luck.

[devils casper]

You can enable write access for all user by using ntfs-3g driver and setting umask=0 for each NTFS partition.
Post the output of these commands :

su -
fdisk -l
df -h

Post the contents of /etc/fstab file too.

[blueagle78]

Thanks for replying "devils casper".

As advised please find the outputs below. All my virtual drives are in /dev/sdb5 (H) partition

Suse:~ # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x11731172

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 13 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 13 14606 117212160 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3 * 14606 38913 195252120 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda5 14606 14867 2101648+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 14867 17479 20978968+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 17479 38913 172171408+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x4c4b4797

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 25802 207254533+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2 25803 51604 207254565 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb3 51605 118991 541278204 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb4 118991 121601 20970496 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb5 25803 51604 207254533+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suse:~ # df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda6 20G 5.6G 14G 30% /
udev 3.0G 224K 3.0G 1% /dev
/dev/sda7 162G 405M 154G 1% /home
/dev/sda1 100M 25M 76M 25% /windows/C
/dev/sda2 112G 30G 83G 27% /windows/D
/dev/sdb1 198G 112G 87G 57% /windows/E
/dev/sdb3 517G 284G 233G 55% /windows/F
/dev/sdb4 20G 1.6G 19G 8% /windows/G
/dev/sdb5 198G 33G 165G 17% /windows/H

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



/dev/disk/by-id/ata-Hitachi_HDP725032GLA360_GEA354RC1PKGYL-part5 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-Hitachi_HDP725032GLA360_GEA354RC1PKGYL-part6 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-Hitachi_HDP725032GLA360_GEA354RC1PKGYL-part7 /home ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-Hitachi_HDP725032GLA360_GEA354RC1PKGYL-part1 /windows/C ntfs-3g users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_GB.U TF-8 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-Hitachi_HDP725032GLA360_GEA354RC1PKGYL-part2 /windows/D ntfs-3g users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_GB.U TF-8 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD103SI_S1VSJ90S556668-part1 /windows/E ntfs-3g users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_GB.U TF-8 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD103SI_S1VSJ90S556668-part3 /windows/F ntfs-3g users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_GB.U TF-8 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD103SI_S1VSJ90S556668-part4 /windows/G ntfs-3g users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_GB.U TF-8 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD103SI_S1VSJ90S556668-part5 /windows/H ntfs-3g users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_GB.U TF-8 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs noauto 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0

[devils casper]

Open /etc/fstab file with root privileges and edit all ntfs-3g lines.
There are 6 lines for NTFS partitions. I am editing 2 here.

/dev/disk/by-id/ata-Hitachi_HDP725032GLA360_GEA354RC1PKGYL-part2 /windows/D ntfs-3g users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_GB.U TF-8 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD103SI_S1VSJ90S556668-part1 /windows/E ntfs-3g users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_GB.U TF-8 0 0

Edit lines :

/dev/disk/by-id/ata-Hitachi_HDP725032GLA360_GEA354RC1PKGYL-part2 /windows/D ntfs-3g defaults,umask=0  0  0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD103SI_S1VSJ90S556668-part1 /windows/E ntfs-3g defaults,umask=0  0  0

Remove all options and add defaults,umask=0 0 0.
Save file and reboot machine.
Edit all 6 lines.

[blueagle78]

Thanks for your help in helping me sort this out.
While I was waiting for your response, I started reading about "ntfs-config" and downloaded and used it, it seems to have done the trick.