Linux/NTFS permissions question

[adz_c]

I am dual booting XP and SUSE using an NTFS USB External HD to store mainly music which I want when I am messing around with Linux.

I can see my NTFS USB External HD in /media and listen to music no problem but can't delete any of the files or folders from Linux even when I'm root.

I was a bit concerned about changing the permissions using chmod/chown incase it locks me out when back in Windows. Also I'm not sure what permission to set in Windows (if necessary) that might allow my Linux logon to alter/delete files.

I understand how to set permissions in Linux and in NTFS but I am not sure about permissions between XP and Linux and if they affect each other.

Thanks for any help!

[netstrider]

It doesn't have anything to do with permissions. Linux can by default not write to NTFS drives. For that you need a special driver called ntfs-3g. I am not too familiar with Suse but I assume you will be able to find it in the Yast repositories if you have the necessary ones enabled, else you can follow the link which will lead you to a straight download. It is likely that you don't have fuse, which you will also have to download in order to get ntfs-3g working, unless you do it via Yast, which will automatically resolve dependencies for you.

If you choose to do it via source take these steps after downloading the above files.
tar -zxvf fuse-filename.tar.gz
change your directory with the 'cd' command to the newly extracted folder.
./configure
make
(then as root) make install

After having done that do exactly the same with ntfs-3g, it is a .tgz file but the example is the same.
To mount your NTFS external drive, I assume it will be automatically mounted, in which case you will have to unmount it first by doing something like:

umount /dev/sdc1 (as root)
To make sure that that is your device run the command fdisk -l and check the list for your NTFS external drive. To mount it with read-write permissions do the following as root.

mkdir /mnt/ExtNTFS
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdc1 /mnt/ExtNTFS -o defaults,umask=0

This will then mount it in the directory /mnt/ExtNTFS.

Good luck

[adz_c]

Thanks netstrider,

It was quite easy to do and once I read more about fstab and it settings (umask, uid and gid) I can now let my girlfriend access my music without her deleting it by mistake as the drive mounts the same every time

I am having a quirky problem with user switching tho, I'll post it seperately:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/sus...tml#post480932