How-to: Read and Write NTFS Windows Partition on Mac OS X

January 17 by | 215 comments | Featured, Lifehack, Management, Resource, Site News, Technology | Tags: , ,

Update: The guide below is outdated. Follow this site for more info.

Users running Mac OS X with Bootcamp Windows may struggle to modify or update your documents and files in the Windows partition – usually it is in NTFS File System format which you can read the drive natively in Mac OS X but not write onto it.

Recently Amit Singh, a Google employee, releases a implementation called MacFUSE which makes it possible to use any FUSE (File-system in USErspace) file systems in Mac. And the most useful FUSE is the NTFS-3G Read/Write Driver, which ables system to load NTFS with read and write capability. This is truly the greatest news for dual booting Mac OS X and Windows XP or Vista.

Without going into great deal of technical details and compilation of the source code, I found out users around Internet already came up with binary version (in DMG) of MacFUSE and ntfs-3g, ready to install (credit to ShadowOfGed at AppleNova). Here are the instructions on how to use MacFUSE and NTFS-3G. It does require a little of administration skills as it involves running commands in the Terminal.

MacFUSE/NTFS-3G works for me, but as this is an experimental software, so back up your data, and try it at your own risk.

Update: The guide above is outdated. Follow this site for more info.

  • http://www.joshuamcharles.com Josh Charles

    Is it possible to use external harddrives formatted ntfs that will be used by both macs and PC's this way?

  • http://www.eduo.info eduo

    Thank you for this tutorial. I think it'll take still a couple of months for users to really realise (especially switchers) the doors MacFUSE opens for them all. I was thinking of doing this myself and you've beaten me to it (for which I'm grateful, as I can forward enquiries to this, much faster than my own site, article :)

    I like how you're packaged all required files and information in one place (which should make it much easier for average users than the traditional FUSE instructions).

    I may in the future need to have this information in Spanish. Would you mind if I were to translate it and backlink it here?

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  • http://bin.4chan.org/g/ OsakanOne

    NTFS-3G 20070116.DMG is no longer available.

    Could you host it somewhere a little more accessable?

  • RMCan

    I can confirm that this works right off the bat with an external NTFS-formatted harddrive (I'm using a Maxtor One-Touch 200GB). It will show up right away, but will read as 0kb available. A simple "killall Finder" fixes this. The download speeds seem to be working great, but upload speeds are a little slower than normal. But hey. You can write to NTFS!

  • Obeechi

    I've been trying to get both sides of my bootcamped MacBook Pro.. to backup to a Maxtor External Drive .. the TB.. and murphys law was waiting for me…

    I've finally come to the conclusion that I need to use Mac's Disk Utility to format 3 partitions on the external drive while using the option of GUID Partition Table aka GPT… and letter the first partition be in Mac Extended Journaled to be for only the bootable backup… and the second partition to be in the same format and to be for saving retrospect backup duplicate and sync scripts as well as files and applications from the Mac Side… and the third partition to be in MS-DOS.. which doesn't show up as a menu choice if your partition scheme is Apple Partition Map… which it will be if you've already erased without partitioning in Mac's Disk Utility.. and which might be the format Maxtor ships it out in (not sure, cause I erased… )… and by choosing this last and third partition for MSDOS within Mac's Disk Utility it will come out of the bakers oven as FAT32.. but the thing is .. my partition is way bigger than 32GB.. and this is one of the things that tripped me.. cause there is nothing wrong with having a partition larger than 32GB in FAT32 as long as you are not going to attempt to install windows on it… nor attempt to get windows to create a larger than 32Gb FAT32 for you… what Mac can do is… is create a large FAT32..and what Windows can do, is convert that large FAT32 into NTFS… by using Disk Manager.. or maybe diskpart (couldn't get the command right in my phrasing… so it was easier to right click on the FAT32 partition while in XP… to select Format and then.. NTFS… Of course… you still need to uncheck ignore ownership, and disable filevault… while on the MacSide…

    So I've only been working on this since Jan 3.. and its now the 19th… ignorance, lack of documentation, needed macintel maxtor update, and retrospect driver update… and plenty of other small mistakes…

    Can anyone confirm that I've finally got this right.. just returned a 500GB eHD and a TB eHD, and got 2 TB eHD's on sale at Frys… for only an additional 34 dollars… at this point.. don't even want to open them until I've had a rest…

  • KW

    Well, it works for me as well… with one problem(big one for me)… It does not show the files with name containing chinese or japanese characters! I cannot access them!

    Can anyone tell me how to uninstall ntfs-3g?

  • KW

    ops… it is the locale setting of ntfs-3g that caused the disappearing of files. I think I'll wait till they have transparent conversion handling… I would like to know how the proper way to uninstall ntfs-3g. Any pointers?

  • Matthew Strax-Haber

    I tried installing this and it doesn't work. I installed MacFuse-0.1.0b006, rebooted. When I tried installing NTFS-3G 20070116-r3, it gives me the following error:

    "You cannot install NTFS-3g on this volume. macfuse_required"

    What should I do?

  • Mark McClusky

    I'm getting the same error — help!

  • Petes

    Please download newer version available at MacFUSE web page. The 0.1.0b006 is badly outdated.

  • http://www.lifehack.org/ Leon

    @Petes: Updated. Thanks.

  • http://blog.flocca.com Flocca

    I've installed version 1.7 of MacFUSE but i'm getting the same error ("You cannot install NTFS-3g on this volume. macfuse_required") when i try to install NTFS-3G 20070116-r3 from the dmg.

  • Conrad

    I'm getting the same error ("You cannot install NTFS-3g on this volume, macfuse_required"). Can anyone help?

  • http://www.lifehack.org/ Leon

    @Conrad: Are you using 0.1.0 Beta 6 dmg? if not can you try that and see if it helps?

  • Pablo

    Is it possible to apply it to some NTFS Hard drives but not to different ones?

    For example, I have an external NTFS HD and my NTFS partition with Windows created with Bootcamp. Is it possible to use MacFUSE with the native HD but not with the external one?

    Second question: how to uninstall MacFUSE and return back to the original status?

    Thanks a lot!

  • steve

    hello i have the same problem: when installing NTFS-3G 20070116-r4.dmg

    It says : macfuse_required

    i installed MacFuse-Core-0-1.1.7.dmg

    can anyone help me please?

  • Guillermo

    Solution for macfuse_required here:

    http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?s=&sho…

  • joe

    quote: hello i have the same problem: when installing NTFS-3G 20070116-r4.dmg

    It says : macfuse_required

    i installed MacFuse-Core-0-1.1.7.dmg

    can anyone help me please?

    Try this:

    find folder RECEIPT inside SYSTEM

    and then copy MacFUSE Core.pkg.

    Paste and change the copy to MacFUSE.pkg

    ** without 'core' **

    and you are ready to install NTFS-3G 20070116-r4.dmg

    hope works!

    JOE

    Indonesian MacUser

  • Michelle

    Hello, how do I make it work for my external hdd? I have installed all the necessary programs mentioned as well as ran the commands on the Terminal, noting the correct Disk Identifier for the external drive of course.

    I would most appreciate it if a step-by-step guide can be posted for external hdd.

  • ndtwc

    thx for the hints and its working perfectly now, except 1 thing: i cannot read all files and folders with non-english names! all chinese files and folders r gone! please can anybody tell me how can i bring them back?

    thankyou

  • tmoon(korean)

    맥퓨즈 설치해도 에러가 뜬다면

    패키지에 우클릭후 패키지 정보보기후 info.plist 에서 키를 삭제해주시면 됩니다.

    If you can't install the ntfs 3g(installed macfuse) delete the key in 'info.plist'…. T.T

  • Philip
  • NR

    Hello,

    Re: the issue ”You cannot install NTFS-3g on this volume. macfuse_required” – I created an alias MacFUSE.pkg pointing to MacFUSE Core.pkg and it worked. This can cater to situations where you have upgraded the MacFuse version (latest is 0.1.9) which will introduce a new MacFUSE Core.pkg

    NR

  • Ted

    EXCELLENT advice up to the last Terminal command…

    in TERMINAL I typed:

    sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk0s2 /Volumes/342200235Windows342200235 -o ping_diskarb,volname=342200235Windows342200235

    and here is what resulted:

    kextload: /Library/Extensions/fusefs.kext loaded successfully

    mount_fusefs: /Volumes/”Windows”: No such file or directory

    OUCH… the Windows volume did not mount no icon on the desktop!

    and yes… my disk identifier is disk0s2

    HELP… thx

  • Ted

    ok… for all those in the same boat – here is what I did to get read/write ability after my little saga with the very last Terminal command…

    1) forget about the last terminal command

    2) if everything up to now worked correctly then go back to DISK UTILITY and CLICK on the NTFS volume (in my case disk0s2) then CLICK the blue MOUNT button

    voila – the disk was mounted and now I can read and write to this volume

    NOTE: MacFuse has been updated to 0.1.9
    http://osx.iusethis.com/app/versions/6191

  • zibin

    nice trick! got it up and running

  • vmf

    cannot download ntfs-3g package, broken link,

    is there another location to download?

  • Bob

    > vmf: cannot download ntsf-3g…

    Look up around Feb 7th, there a new link.

  • gonzalo

    hello, i followed the steps and it worked ok. But everytime i want to paste a file inside the windows drive it says " no free space" when i know i have like 10 gb of free space.

    Any thoughts?

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  • Damilola

    i can't even download the NTFS-3G file, the link doesn't work

  • Josh

    This is a great setup. I tried following the instructions, but the NTFS-3 DMG does not seem to work using macFUSE 2.1. Has anyone else had this trouble or know of a different link to solve this. Thanks

  • ViperVin

    I noticed that the NTFS-3G driver is now stable at 1.0, will there be a .dmg release for the OS X soon?

  • Dbug

    The how-to needs to be updated for current components, there's a newer binary for the NTFS-3G component built for instance
    http://idisk.mac.com/shadowofged/Public/Software/…

    That was mentioned at
    http://forums.applenova.com/showthread.php?t=2184…

    I think these people posting binaries need to post the source as well if it was modified at all. Anyone dealing with open-source code please remember to follow the terms of the license.

    That said, it seems the things adjusted to build on OS X are relatively trivial.

  • KK

    Hi,

    I have installed MacFuse Ver 2.0 and the NTFS-3 also.

    I have successfully completed the process. The problem is i am unable to copy folders. I can only copy individual files and signle file in any folder.

    When I tried to do it again it got this following error message in terminal-

    udo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk0s3 /Volumes/342200235Windows342200235 -o ping_diskarb,volname=342200235Windows342200235

    mount_fusefs: /Volumes/”Windows”: No such file or directory

    any help???

    Thank You.

  • Peter Savas

    Can someone tell me how to undo/uninstall/reveret to the OS/X provided drivers once it's been done? Bootcamp will no longer recognize my Windows Partition (i.e. I no longer get a Windows volume in the "Startup Disk" item in the Contol Panel).

    Thanks.

  • tirso

    Thanks for this cool tip. I got it up and running even on my external drive. There is only one minor annoing thing, everytime I reboot, I have to rename the extension of the drive. Upon rebooting, the drive name is something like disk0s3… Does anyone know how to keep this from happening. I keep my iTunes folder on my external disk and it tends to screw up the database when the disk extension name keeps changing.

    Thx

  • Rich

    Thanks this worked very well. I had the "required MacFUSE" problem and I downloaded the update and it worked. However, don't copy paste the last step of the terminal commands – change the disk0s# AND be careful to match the text…I copied and pasted into Terminal, changing the disk#, but I had a lot of extra characters in the paste. So, just be careful. Thanks for doing the hard work in making this, it is very useful!

    Rich

  • edward

    Hey, I finally managed to get the whole thing going except using a few updated versions of stuff which is super. I'm just having one issue…

    I'm using an 80gb external hard drive but it comes up in the get info box as having 0kb capacity and 0kb free so I'm able to delete stuff, but not add it. In Disk Utility it comes up fine as 77gb or so capacity and 5gb free.

    Any suggestions?

  • edward

    …carrying on from the last one.

    Actually huge amounts of files don't even show up.

    I think I'm doing something wrong here……

    If someone could help, that would be awesome.

  • James

    Just set MacFUSE and ntfs-3g on my macbook. I have one problem though. I can take any file created on the HFS partition and load it onto the nfts (bootcamp) partition of my mac, and from the ntfs partition I can edit that file fine. But when I try to edit a file created on the ntfs partition (in windows) and a save it, the file disappears, and I think it is deleted. I saw one post on this above but no solution . Any help would be great.

    -James

  • CHris

    Someone said to get rid of the 0 kb available problem, you do a finder killall. What is this?

  • Andre

    It was all working fine but then suddenly stopped. I can mount the Windows disk but no longer write to it.

    When trying to repeat the process to allow writing, I get the following:

    administrators-computer:/Volumes admin$ sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk0s3/Volumes/"Windows" -o ping_diskarb,volname="Wind>

    Failed to access '/dev/disk0s3/Volumes/Windows': Not a directory

    administrators-computer:/Volumes admin$

  • http://www.hostellerieboussemaere.be John

    hi,

    I know Tiger is required to get this working, but has anyone tried with a previous Mac version?

    does this work with 10.3.9

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  • Joseph Forte

    I get problems with the third command. Also DiskUtility will not mount the volume.

    $LogFile indicates unclean shutdown (0, 0)

    Failed to mount '/dev/disk4s1': Operation not supported

    Mount is denied because NTFS is marked to be in use. Choose one action:

    Choice 1: If you have Windows then disconnect the external devices by

    clicking on the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon in the Windows

    taskbar then shutdown Windows cleanly.

    Choice 2: If you don't have Windows then you can use the 'force' option for

    your own responsibility. For example type on the command line:

    mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/disk4s1 /Volumes/”Windows” -o force

    Or add the option to the relevant row in the /etc/fstab file:

    /dev/disk4s1 /Volumes/”Windows” ntfs-3g defaults,force 0 0

    inteliMacether:~ joe40$ mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/disk4s1 /Volumes/ "Windows " -o force

    usage: mount [-dfruvw] [-o options] [-t ufs | external_type] special node

    mount [-adfruvw] [-t ufs | external_type]

    mount [-dfruvw] special | node

  • http://www.fotolog.com/psyget pSyGet

    hey it worked wonderfully for me, thank you very much

    ;)

  • eike

    How to hide files starting with a dot in the beginning, under windows this is annoying. How to uninstall..?

    thx

    Eike

  • gelo

    I've got the same error as Joseph Forte. Any solution?

  • Andreas

    Thanks for a good article about NTFS and how to read/write to this Windows file system.

    But you should update the download links please. There are new more stable versions of MacFuse and NTFS-3G now.

  • Mike

    I am also having the Mount is denied because NTFS is marked to be in use error. The drive is showing as unmounted in the disk tools..???

    Anyone got any comments.. Im trying to backup 500GB drives and its impossibly slow over the network.. I need them both ont he mac

  • Javi

    Hi, i have working all but yesterday, i install macfuse 0.3.0 and after i cant move or copy some files to ntfs disk. The message tell me in spanish like this: "you dont have some privileges for copy "some" items…." or some similar. What happen? how can i uninstall macfuse and install the version used on this tutorial which worked well for me?

    Please somebody answer me…help.

    Thanks

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  • Pratik

    I'm having the same problem as Joseph and gelo.

    "$LogFile indicates unclean shutdown (0, 0)

    Failed to mount '/dev/disk1s1': Operation not supported

    Mount is denied because NTFS is marked to be in use. Choose one action:

    Choice 1: If you have Windows then disconnect the external devices by

    clicking on the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon in the Windows

    taskbar then shutdown Windows cleanly.

    Choice 2: If you don't have Windows then you can use the 'force' option for

    your own responsibility. For example type on the command line:

    mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/Windows -o force

    Or add the option to the relevant row in the /etc/fstab file:

    /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/Windows ntfs-3g defaults,force 0 0"

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  • Sharon

    after i finish the installation process, i am able to edit my extenal hard drive but two problems appear:

    1. only the file name in English can be read

    2. i lost my original Bootcamp Windows drive on Mac OS.

    Can anyone help me solving the problem ? or at least back to the original state where I can only read my external drive (I try to trash the app. but it doesn't work)

  • nate

    All was going well and I was able to read/write my NTFS drive…. but somewhere in there I lost the ability to mount .dmg disk image files. Perhaps the newest MacFUSE/NTFS-3g combination doesn't require the terminal commands? Any ideas for how to reverse the process?? Thanks much

  • jerry

    THIS IS A VERY OUTDATED PAGE, do not follow the instructions here or you will end up with a lot of heartaches like DMG not mounting, NTFS no longer working, etc.

  • nate

    Found a solution to the .dmg not mounting issue.

    Basically you need to uninstall NTFS-3G thoroughly either manually or by using sudo with the uninstaller.

    I was not sure how to track down the individual

    files belonging to the NTFS-3G distribution so I attempted to run the NTFS-3G Uninstaller with "sudo" (I had read somewhere that the uninstaller

    is "broken").

    It didn't appear to work until I reinstalled MacFUSE 0.3.0 and then reinstalled NTFS-3G — to give the uninstaller on the NTFS-3G disk image something to work with…I navigated to the NTFS-3G disk

    image directory (which I was able to mount; Toast would probably be able to mount it as well) and finally ran this in termiinal

    sudo ./Uninstall.command / NTFS-3G

    I restarted to be safe and was once

    again able to mount .dmg files.

  • Brighid

    Thank you so much! This was very helpful. I found that after mounting in the Terminal I had to relaunch the Finder (via Command+Option+Escape) before the drive appeared on my desktop (before doing that I confirmed its being mounted by browsing in the Terminal).

  • diego

    Hi. i finally i got straight with the macfuse and ntfs-3g, no terminals or anything. i can delete files from my HD but when i try to add files it says "the operation cannot be completed because you do not have suffient privileges for some items" so can somebody help me figuring out what that means and how can i solve it?

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  • i

    So if this page is outdated, where would one find up-to-date information in a format even I am able to understand? All I want to do is write to my external NTFS-drive. I got it running few months back, but it hasn't worked for a while now. Can't remember what (if anything) happened.

    Thanks in advance,

    -i

  • Glenn

    To everyone asking about “the operation cannot be completed because you do not have suffient privileges for some items”, I had the same problem, and found out that to copy files and folders to a Windows partition (as of MacFUSE 0.4.0 http://macfuse.googlecode.com/files/MacFUSE-Core-… and NTFS-3G 2020070116-r4 http://chucker.mystfans.com/opensource/ntfs-3g/NT… ) you have to use Terminal. To do this, open terminal, type "cp" (or "cpdir" if you're copying a folder), drag in the file you want to copy, and then drag in the destination folder and press return. This should successfully copy the files/folders into the windows partition. If you're having trouble deleting things from the windows partition, try opening terminal, typing "rm" (or "rmdir" if you're trying to delete a folder) and drag in the file/folder you want to delete.

  • Jamie

    Hi there, I want to unistall NTFS-3g but haven't found any live links to uninstallers anywhere. Does anyone know how I can go about doing this?

    Thanks much

  • Glenn

    http://chucker.mystfans.com/opensource/ntfs-3g/NT… is the latest I've found. Also, for everyone with a "insufficient priveledges" problem, when trying to copy to ntfs: you have to use the Terminal. Open terminal, type "cp " (or "cpdir " if you're working with folders), then drag the file/folder into the terminal, then drag the destination folder into the terminal. It works for me.

  • Glenn

    Sorry about that last comment… Copy of one above..

  • Sherwin

    I got it all to work, and to copy the files, I'm using the cp commands on terminal. But from reading the forum, apparently, other people have been able to use finder to copy files. What seems to be the privileges problem that I can't use Finder to copy files? If I do a Get Info on the drive, I do have read/write privileges on it.

  • Glenn

    I know what you mean, Sherwin, and I haven't been able to find an answer or solution to that. The only new info I have is that I just found out that you can copy in Finder properly if you're logged in to root. Doesn't help your regular user much, I know, unless you know of some way to give your user root privileges.

  • Glenn

    Just after I wrote that previous post, I got to work on trying to give a standard user root privileges. I found out that this can be accomplished by opening "/Applications/Utilities/NetInfo Manager" and going into "Users" and selecting your user. Change the "uid" field to 0 and quit NetInfo Manager. It will have I think 3 dialogs (just say "yes" or the equivalent to each) and you'll have root access. You should NOT try this without first backing up, since I haven't really tested it yet, and you should realize that this will grant you FULL root access (I think), which you might not want for just any account. The one thing I do know about this, though, is that this DOES allow easy drag-and-drop copying from Finder to a NTFS-3G drive.

  • darkXmatt

    Worked ^^

  • Brandon

    Hi, I tried to install bootcamp on my mac os x but in the installation process either the disk or my mac froze and i had to force restart. When I booted onto Mac Os X again, the 30gb i had partitionned became unusable. I can't mount the disk and I can't erase it on disk utility. Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated.

  • Andres

    Hi, I am having the same problem as some other people above, not being able to download/ mount "NTFS-3G 20070116.DMG". I keep getting the messages "mounting failed", after downloading and then corrupt image when trying to install it.

    Also someone else mentioned, I am using OSX 10.3.9 on the Mac Powerbook I want to install this on, has anyone been succesful with this OS ?

    Thanks.

  • Greg

    I have an external Firewire NTFS drive (using MB Pro w/10.4.10). Installed Macfuse & NTFS-3G, disk will not mount. Will not mount using Terminal instructions (I get the 'will not mount' error), and I DO NOT understand this post from above:

    I’m having the same problem as Joseph and gelo.

    “$LogFile indicates unclean shutdown (0, 0)

    Failed to mount ‘/dev/disk1s1′: Operation not supported

    Mount is denied because NTFS is marked to be in use. Choose one action:

    Choice 1: If you have Windows then disconnect the external devices by

    clicking on the ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ icon in the Windows

    taskbar then shutdown Windows cleanly.

    Choice 2: If you don’t have Windows then you can use the ‘force’ option for

    your own responsibility. For example type on the command line:

    mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/Windows -o force

    Or add the option to the relevant row in the /etc/fstab file:

    /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/Windows ntfs-3g defaults,force 0 0″

    I've researched this for days (literally) and I feel no closer to solving this problem. Someone please help!!

  • Casey

    Greg,

    To fix that, boot Windows and do a chkdisk of your drive. Be sure to pass -f or whatever option causes it to fix any error in the NTFS filesystem. That will clear the "logfile" on the drive and it will mount fine with ntfs-3g. Alternatively, as mentioned in the error message, you can also use the -o force option to mount the dirty drive.

    Good luck.

  • Greg

    Thanks Casey, but I have followed (what I interpret to be) these directions and no net result. I get a ">" symbol in the terminal if I attatch the "force" language onto the original script, I get this message if I simply try the command "mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/Windows -o force":

    usage: mount [-dfruvw] [-o options] [-t ufs | external_type] special node

    mount [-adfruvw] [-t ufs | external_type]

    mount [-dfruvw] special | node

    Maybe I'm missing something. Many have bootcamp and Windows installed, but I do not. I'm simply trying to mount an NTSF drive with my intel powerbook. Thanks so much for any help!

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  • Max S.

    Error unmounting external unit –

    Guys, i've gone over and over again, trying everything at hand, even uninstalling completelly both Fuse and ntfs-3g, though i still get same error:

    Cannot unmount unit – Error.

    Then, after the error message, when you try to mount again, a sort of new image of the drive is created (e.g. Max_02 3, being "3" a sort of new image) that i cannot read at all. I get access to the drive, info says that i can read/write the volume, shows proper available space, though still doesn't work.

    At least, the unit is still read/writable in Windows environment.

    Any tips?

    Best regards!

  • Greg

    Okay, so I've finally gotten the NTFS drive to mount, it's listed as read and write and even shows a copy progress window when copying but after that gives me the "…do not have sufficient access priviliges" error and nothing has been transfered.

    When I "get info" under ownerships and permissions I see "you can read and write" but it has no ownership or other data (no, I'm not forgetting to click the details arrow :))

    Man, I was so close haha. Any thoughts???

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  • Greg

    I've discovered how to copy the files through the terminal which works great. From what I've researched it sounds like an update would fix the problem. Cheers,

  • John

    Here's a list of problems i had and which i found a solution to, thanks to some comments here.:

    Q: MacFuse won't install. I get an error message saying i should try again

    A: Repair your disk permissions and try again, it should work now.

    Q: Heeeelp, where can i get a proper version of NTFS-3G that isn't broke?

    A: You can download NTFS-3G here: http://www.daniel-johnson.org/ (click the "download the NTFS-3G package" link)

    Q: My NTFS formatted drive won't mount on my desktop after having done everything they told me!

    A: Restart Finder (open Terminal and enter (exactly like this, without quotes) 'killall Finder')

    Q: So… Now i finally got the drive mounted but it shows there's 0Kb available, so i can't copy anything to it, Help!

    A: Restart Finder (open Terminal and enter (exactly like this, without quotes) 'killall Finder')

    There. That's all i stumbled apon and got solved :)

    I hope it helps someone ;-)

  • BigDaddyJoe

    I installed macFuse and NTFS-3g successfully…

    now the the problem is terminal wouldnt accept the command listed below:

    g5depower-mac-g5:~ g5$ sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g/dev/disk1s5/Volumes/"Windows"-o ping_diskarb,volname="Windows"

    RESULT:

    g5depower-mac-g5:~ g5$ sudo:/usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g/dev/disk1s5/Volumes/Windows: command not found

    … ahh… i need help here..

    Thanks!

  • Chris

    Use this:

    sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk1s5 /Volumes/Windows -o ping_diskarb,volname="Windows"

    (copy paste it… just don't care if it looks different in the terminal… it will work ^^)

    I also have the problem that I can not copy files onto it. Get the permission thing. why?

  • kolax

    Hi , i am able to transfer to n fro already but is there other way to redo this action ? cos i used to be ableto drag from my external hdd and save onmy Mac , now all external hgg will not be about to mount unless i go into the terminal. and transfering file i had to use terminal too which it too troublesome . any help out there ?

  • Tup

    Fit like,

    I've followed through the instructions at the top of the page to the "T" I think and I'm able to read/write to my ntfs drive – however after a restart the process needs to be repeated again and so on after every restart. Is it possible to cure this so that I don't have to go through the terminal settings again?

  • popoy

    the link below is really helpful in solving the problem with not being able to install ntfs-3g saying "macfuse_required" eventhough macfuse has already been installed.

    http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?s=05357162…

  • Rye

    CHRIS: You are the MAN. Your replacement line saved the day. MANY MANY thnaks. G5 PPC iMac/2.1/250.

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  • huan

    I managed to make MacFUSE and NTFS-3g work on my macbook. but the speed seems to be quite slow (less than 2Mb/sec). does anyone have a comment about that? I have a usb2.0, and Maxtor 500GB harddisk.

  • http://www.daneglerum.com Dane Glerum

    I'm not sure if this will work for everyone but for those of you getting the "NTFS is in Use" error simple add force after the options flag.

    Eg.

    sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk0s3 /Volumes/"Windows" -o force,ping_diskarb,volname="Windows"

    From what I can tell this seems to happen because OSX doesn't recognise that the NTFS drive has been unmounted. This problem went away after a restart.

    Also does anyone know how to make the mounting occur automatically at login. Its a pain having to reenter all this again after a reboot.

    Cheers.

  • Behram

    hi when is put in the command

    sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk1s5 /Volumes/"Windows" -o ping_diskarb,volname="Windows"

    it tells me command not found. can some one help please. I have come from a winows environment and i m trying to use my external usb Hdd.

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  • CK

    thanks, dude. It works.

  • http://www.3walim.com منتديات

    it work as charm

    thanks

  • Brainkite

    it doesn't work for me in the terminal, when i write the last command

    sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk0s3 /Volumes/”Windows” -o ping_diskarb,volname=”Windows”

    it tells me:

    mount_fusefs: /Volumes/”Windows”: No such file or directory

  • Eric

    Great job guys, i was puzzled when I found the native mac driver didn't see all of the files/folders on my 500gb seagate usb ntfs disk. ntfs-3g and the fuse toolkit got my fotos of the grand canyon to the wife's macbook no-problemo. Tad slow, but it is quite better than nada. Big Thanks!!

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  • Fabian

    sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk0s3 /Volumes/”Windows” -o ping_diskarb,volname=”Windows”

    this command has a fault.

    USE THIS:

    sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk0s3 /Volumes/Windows -o ping_diskarb,volname=”Windows”

    And notice this!

    Q 4.2. I mounted a MacFUSE volume but I don't see a volume icon on the Desktop. Why?

    A: Check if the Finder preference for showing mounted servers on the Desktop is enabled. (Also see Q 4.1 to understand why we are talking about "servers" here.) On Mac OS X "Leopard", this preference is not enabled by default. You can either check if Finder->Preferences->General->Connected servers is checked, or you can use the defaults command from a shell:

    $ defaults read com.apple.Finder ShowMountedServersOnDesktop

    0

    If the preference is unchecked, you can check it within the GUI or use defaults to set its value to 1:

    $ defaults read com.apple.Finder ShowMountedServersOnDesktop 1

    Alternatively, you can use the -o local MacFUSE mount-time option to tag the volume being mounted as "local", in which case it would show up on the Desktop unless you have disabled "external disks" from showing up on the Desktop.

    This tutorial works fine for me! Thanks alot.

    Greetings

    Fabian

  • http://n/a JoJo

    dang, she is slow. finder is showing my 111gb copy will take 186hours, it has already been going all night and only copyed 2.7gb. Need for speed. but still cool.

  • Felice

    NTFS-3G 1.1004 with UBLIO made wonders! Over 20 MB/s write speed :) But the caching must be enabled manually because it's not the default operation mode yet:
    http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/

  • Josh

    Can I used a MAC formatted HD on a PC and be able to take files from it?

    Thanks

    Josh

  • Z

    Latest NTFS-3G and latest MacFuse. Everything works up to the point of the last command. OSX 10.5

    sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g/dev/diskOs3/Volumes/"Windows" -o ping_diskarb,volname="Windows"

    sudo: /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g/dev/diskOs3/Volumes/Windows: command not found

  • John Smith

    @Z

    There is a space between ntfs-3g and /dev

  • ryall

    Great! Now my mac can clutter all my windows directories with .DS_Store files too!

  • freeballer

    I installed ntfs-3g and macfuse on leopard but I can see the ntfs partition in the disk util…

    I can see partition 1 is hidden 200mg, second is osx and 3rd (should be extended 5th partition) is my saved vfat32 partition. But no NTFS showing at all… Can someone please help, apple forum is no help at all!

  • http://blogowisk.com Ivan Neto

    PIMP:~ ivanneto$ sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk0s3 /Volumes/Windows -o ping_diskarb,volname="Windows"

    mount_fusefs: fusefs@0 on /Volumes/Windows: Invalid argument

    PIMP:~ ivanneto$

    Any ideas?

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  • ParanoidX

    Finally, thanks all guy.

    Spent all the lunch for fix all these things then now it's work ^^ unbelievable that I met all the error that all Mac helper here met :((

    1. The MacFuse Required error (fix by InsanelyMac http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?s=&sho…
    2. The "…sufficient privileges for some items", before fix this thing I use command line to copy files and folders, the next step is change uid of my own user to root [from uid 501 - 0](backed up my account and create another account for backup ^^), restart or log off then login again with the change, then just do the drag and drop action ^^

    So hHappy now, thank for all of your action and your kind ^^

  • LS111553

    I wnt through all the problem – solving instructions (receipts, set user to root uid=0, mount nfts drive via killall). Now the external Firewire NFTS drive shows on the desktop of my Mac Mini, but as of last night, every time I tried to copy a file to it, I would get an error message about the files not being readable (error -36).

    What's worse, some of the very few files I could actually copy yesterday are gone today!!!

    I would appreciate any help / suggestions!!

    Thanks

  • LS111553

    Here's another alternative. It does not involve MacFuse and is working for me.

    http://www.philmug.ph/forum/showthread.php?t=2697…

  • ucdpdiddy

    I have an external USB drive formatted with NTFS. This is what I did to get it working in OSX 10.4.10(tiger).

    1. downloaded and installed NTFS-3G:

    NTFS-3G_1.1104-stable-catacombae.dmg

    2. downloaded and installed MacFUSE-Core:

    NTFS-3G_1.1004-u2-catacombae.dmg

    3.plugged in USB drive and it didn't show up. The NTFS-3G dmg file downloaded in step 1 comes with a Tools folder that contains useful scripts. I decided to try turning off the NTFS-3G driver by clicking the Disable-NTFS-3G script. Now I replugged my USB drive and it showed up.

    Realizing that maybe my USB drive was not properly disconnected or shutdown from my WINXP machine. I did the following:

    4. I plugged the USB HD into my WINXP machine and clicked the "Safely Remove" devices icon in the task bar.

    5. On my MAC, I clicked the Enable-NTFS-3G script from the Tools folder.

    6. I plugged the USB HD back into my MAC and viola! It was auto mounted.

    Hope this helps.

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  • Arik

    OK. Do I have to have bootcamp and a windows partition on my macbook? At this moment I only have 1 mac partition.

    Disk Identifier : disk0

    Total Capacity : 74.5 GB

    I also have an external Western digital HD in an a USB thing-a-ma-jig that I plug into my macbook… and I can't write to it.

    Name : WDC WD20 00JB-00GVC0 Media

    Disk Identifier : disk1

    Total Capacity : 186.3 GB

    When I try to install NTFS-3G, error msg in the installer tells me that it won't work on either the Mac partition or the External NTFS partition…. any ideas? What do I do?

  • http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/ Anatoly

    Why don't use Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X? This product has 10-days trial version that can help you to do what you need.

  • noetus

    I've just tried Paragon, I think it's still very new and may not have the bugs ironed out yet. It seems to corrupt pdf files when reading/writing to NTFS. There is a posting about this on their support forum. File corruption is NOT good! It is rumored to be faster than the Macfuse solution, though, and you can format NTFS partitions natively in Mac OS, and other good things – let's hope they get that bug (and any others) sorted soon!

  • Orygun

    My Drive finally re-appeared on the desktop after I deleted all the driver files from NTFS-3G.

    In Leopard, I think I'll go with Paragon.

  • Mat

    Hi,

    I get the follow error. Any ideas:

    Welcome to Darwin!

    matthew-guthries-computer:~ Mat$ sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk0s3 /Volumes/342200235Windows342200235 -o ping_diskarb,volname=342200235Windows342200235

    Bootsector checksum failed.

    Failed to startup volume: Invalid argument

    Failed to mount '/dev/disk0s3': Invalid argument

    The device '/dev/disk0s3' 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?

    Many thanks

    Mat

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  • http://N/A DJH

    I tried installing NTFS-3g after installing MacFuse, but it told me it couldn't, because MacFuse wasn't installed. Great idea … for someone else.

  • opeeum

    AND realize that there is a SPACE between ../disk0s3 AND /Volumes… in:

    dev/disk0s3 /Volumes/

  • opeeum

    AND realize that there is a SPACE between ../disk0s3 and /Volumes/…

    in the last terminal command…

    I just caught this one of my mistakes trying to understand what the code was trying to do

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  • Anthony

    What about Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X i installed it and it worked right away.

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  • Paul

    I tried paragon NTFS MAC product version 6.0.12 and ended up with a mess! The software installed fins and appeared to work AT FIRST!

    Slowly performance degraded and files got corrupted.

    I could never copy any files larger than 100 MB from the NTFS side to the MAC side without an error.

    The worst was that I started having boot up issues on my OSx partition! As soon as I removed Paragon all the problems went away!

    I read later in the paragon forums that there was an updated release of the Paragon software that supposedly resolved the issues, but when I attempted to contact support to procure the update, I got no response… and I AM a paying customer! Many people have complained about their horrid support. I am hoping that their product becomes better, but I am NOT holding my breath!

    it is back to NTFS3g and Macfuse for me!

    regards,

    Paul

  • Andrew Sewell

    Okay, I followed these instructions–installed MacFuse and NTFS3g ok, typed the "sudo" lines, and my external hard drive completely disappeared from my desktop. It doesn't even show up in Disk Utility any more.

    Luckily, I can still access it in Boot Camp, and it still appears in my VMWare Fusion virtual Windows machine, so I'm not totally hosed. But what went wrong here? I'm now worse off than I was when I tried this fix, because I can't even read files from my external drive now, unless I'm using Windows. How do I reverse this procedure?

    The problem of uninstalling MacFuse and NTFS3G is really puzzling me. Call me naive, but I've heard enough Mac users crowing over the years that uninstalling a program is as simple as dragging it from the application folder to the trash, no complicated uninstall programs necessary like we dumbass Windows users have to use. However, I don't see MacFuse in my applications folder, and the search window can't find it either. I know it's in there, though, because when I try to install an earlier version, a warning pops up telling me that it's already installed. What gives?

    –Puzzled Would-Be Windows Convert

  • Andrew Sewell

    You know, I've pretty much had it with this worthless OS X crap. Eight steps to hook up an external hard drive? In Windows, it takes one step–you plug it in the USB port, that's it. I'd delete MacFuse if I could figure out how. In Windows, it would be located in the "Programs" directory, but Mac is clearly too clever for that. At least this machine runs Windows–that's it's saving grace. And that's what I think I'll stick with.

  • Eleventeen

    You know, Andrew, people like you are the types that give Mac users bad reps.

    "You know, I’ve pretty much had it with this worthless OS X crap. Eight steps to hook up an external hard drive? In Windows, it takes one step–you plug it in the USB port, that’s it."

    Funny, everything except my NTFS volumes pop right up when I plug them in. And this is on 10.4, which is now a generation behind. You know what, they did the same under 10.3, two generations behind. Here's a secret for you: NTFS (NT File System) is a Microsoft proprietary disk format. Apple is under no obligation to support this natively, as FAT drives *already* work between both operating systems just fine. Asking Apple to support NTFS would be like asking Microsoft to support HFS+ in Windows. Boy I bet I've lost you now!

    "I’d delete MacFuse if I could figure out how. In Windows, it would be located in the “Programs” directory, but Mac is clearly too clever for that."

    Did you ever think that if you didn't know how to uninstall a component of the operating system to modifies the Linux file system that underlies OS X that maybe you shouldn't be messing with it in the first place? They make shiny, prepackaged commercial products that do all this for you so that the 'OS X for Dummies' crowd can play along too.

    "At least this machine runs Windows–that’s it’s saving grace. And that’s what I think I’ll stick with."

    Hey while you're at it why don't you go out and buy yourself a Dell or an HP like all the other sheep out there if all you wanted to do was run Windows.

    You know, this stems from the fact that if you'd read the instructions on the NTFS-3g site you would have realized that the most current version *automatically* mounts NTFS volumes, you no longer have to resort to the command line options. You no doubt realized of course that the blog post you were getting your instructions from was *more than* a year old, right? Huh, probably not else you wouldn't have even had issues to begin with.

    Once a Windows weenie, always a Windows weenie I guess. Go back to that side of the street and leave us Mac guys alone next time.

  • Aaron

    I just want to confirm something before making a longer post about my experiences.

    (1) I installed MacFUSE and NTFS-3g up to the point of running terminal commands, BUT I DIDN'T RUN ANY. I stopped there.

    (2) ANY NTFS volume mounts automatically on my desktop, without me having to run any terminal commands.

    (3) I have full read and write access to ANY NTFS volume.

    (4) Get Info (Command-I) reports NTFS volumes as having the format: NTFS-3g (MacFUSE)

    (5) I can format ANY volume to NTFS format using DIsk Utility (which reports the format as 'Windows NT Filesystem 3G'

    Is this what others experience? I thought the running of terminal commands was necessary to install, I thought it was necessary to mount volumes, and I thought you couldn't do native formatting. But none of that seems to be true on my system.

  • willie

    @aaron – what version of os x are you running?

  • Aaron

    It's 10.5.2. I have to correct what I said about formatting. I tried formatting a physical partition on the internal HDD and it returned an error. However, it appears I was successfully able to format a USB drive.

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  • wooga

    aaron – please paste the links to the sites that you got your version of macfuse and ntfs-3g from.

  • Marc

    I think Aaron is running the NTFS-3G package from this site:

    http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/

    I'm using it coupled with the latest version of MacFUSE from Google:

    http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/downloads/list

    It integrates quite nicely with OS X's disk arbitration, which means it runs in the plug-and-play manner for which Andrew so mightily trolls.

    The versions embedded in the article at the top of this page are badly out of date and shouldn't be used. In general, link to a source page rather than locally hosting a copy of something – particularly with fast-evolving open-source software.

    But thanks for the article itself – by pointing me to (Mac)FUSE and NTFS-3G, you solved my problem.

  • Aaron

    Yes that's right – when I read this article, I was careful to use the latest versions I could find and not the versions linked to at the top of this page. I figured that was common sense, more or less!

    Great, it means this wasn't a one off (I was afraid it had to do with the way I installed Paragon NTFS for Mac on top of MacFUSE and then uninstalled it 'cos it's buggy) and this functionality can be enjoyed by everyone.

    Way to go, open-source community!!

  • Aaron

    PS. Looks like the links have been updated now. Thanks! (Important because this is the first page Google links to when searching for MacFUSE and NTFS-3g).

    Also, beware of the Paragon driver. It appears to corrupt files, and the people over at Paragon refuse to admit that it does! Check their forums.

  • solarboy

    What a waste of time. Update your site, your trashing the machines of thousands of new converts.

  • Paul Hawkins

    I installed MacFUSE & the NTFS-3G version from http://www.ntfs-3g.org/

    Plugging in a NTFS formatted USB drive (bus powered in this case) results in the drive mounting automatically. This matches the previous operation. However the type of drive is NTFS-3g (MacFUSE) and it is possible to write to the drive through the finder without having to explicitly mount it as this type.

    A most welcome bonus it would seem.

    I am using MacFUSE Core 10.5-1.3.1 & NTFS-3G 1.2310 (catacombae) [stable].

    OS X is at version 10.5.2

  • SoopahMan

    Just got this to work under OSX 10.5.1 and a USB2.0 NTFS drive (a Drobo). I had to add the Force command to get around the fact that the Windows box that last connected to it didn't disconnect properly:

    sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk2s1 /Volumes/"Drobo" -o ping_diskarb,volname="Drobo",force

    Caveat: OSX Finder cannot copy files to the mounted drive, just create folders. To copy files I had to drop down to Terminal cp commands – but even cp -R works flawlessly. Finder must be asking MacFuse to do something stupid.

    Speed is OK as a backup/rescue solution but not acceptable for daily storage.

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  • PRANEET

    IT WORKED LIKE CHARM .. JUST DOWNLOAD THE LATEST VERSION OF THE ABOVE 2 SOFTWARE FROM THEIR WEBSITE.. AND FOLLOW THE PROCESS.. THEN U WILL BE ABLE TO USE IT…. THANKS FOR STEPS,,

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  • Robinson

    How I UNDO this? My MacBook Pro`s finder now is totally unresponsible!!! I cant open folders, see files, nothing!!!

  • http://www.tmdaexhibits.com Patrick McMillan

    I've been using the latest Macfuse and NTFS versions I could find and have had no problems. (Early versions, a different and much longer story, I concur.)The drives are readable/writable when I boot up. One weird anomaly to report however, on the Windows side of the machine: IE toolbars show up in Spanish, no matter how I alter language preferences, no matter what version of IE I download. Porque? Yo no hablo espanol. (yet) Does anyone know how to get my machine back in the States?

  • nishani

    I have a macs os x and my windows side is not working and says u have a missing file. someone says i have tto reboot windows. does anyone know how to download a program to reboot windows again? please help!!! very desperate!!1

  • dixter20

    to everyone with the 'Mount is denied because NTFS is marked to be in use" problem:

    I had the same problem and here's how I fixed it.

    You have two options:

    1.) from a Mac –> install Paragon and access drive using it and disconnect drive

    2.) from a PC –> plug in drive and remove safely, thereby taking it out of use

    I chose option 2 because it was easiest.

  • Amadeus

    @nishani

    What do u mean by windows side cannot working?

    Press "Option" key when booting, you will be ask to choose which OS to boot from.

  • Michael

    Ditto for me, dixter20, pretty much, except I used VMWare Fusion to mount, then "safely remove" the drive. After doing that, it auto-mounted on my MacBook Pro just fine. I'm running the latest version of Leopard.

  • dan

    Help please/

    I am really new to this. In the middle of transferring my PC to a iMac. The plan is to:

    * install Win XP Pro in Boot Camp. Using a reasonable partition. Will use for applications that require excellent stability, such as day trading tools

    * transfer all the files (currently on D drive on my PC) to my iMac. Just store them on the iMac, to be more exact, with no intention to access them from Leopard

    * use VMware on the Boot Camp partition to do my usual work (e.g. Outlook, Word, PowerPoint) saving all my work on the iMac

    Anything funny in the above? Not sure I understand the details around MacFuse etc. I must be missing something important :-)

    thanks a lot,

    /dan.

  • dan

    just to clarify: VMware would allow me to access the files stored on the iMac (saved during Step 2)

  • DJH

    Am I missing something here? The post says "Here are the instructions on how to use MacFUSE and NTFS-3G," but there are no instructions.

    FWIW I have gone to the Google Code and 3G Web sites, downloaded and installed them as directed there, and still cannot get write access to an NTFS volume. I suspect the missing directions would take care of this.

    So what happened to them? Is there a solution or am I SOL?

  • nick

    Used paragon as well, corrupted all my files when copying to ntfs disk

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  • Suggz

    I have a mac notebook with windows using bootcamp. Not sure what I did ex. in disk utilities or Start up disk.

    When I turn on my mac, it autmatically goes to Windows and I am not able to go through bootcamp icon in control panel to fix start up option.

    No matter what disk/hardrive, i keep going back to windows…

    Please HELP!

  • Suggz
  • Edwiersma

    Hi,

    first of all why should you format your drive to NTFS aniway? Fat32 just works :P

    Second of all; is there a way that my mac partion shows up in windows?

    I already noticed i can't cant in the bios XD

  • Kurt Theurer

    Fat32 has a 2 GB file size limit!!!

    Besides is unstable with disks larger than 32 GB.

    To see Mac drives in Windows you need a software, for example, Mac Drive.

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  • http://www.Voxeo.com tim

    So, for all of those people (like me), who tried this and got the error that you can't mount because of an improper shutdown "“$LogFile indicates unclean shutdown (0, 0)" … do this ;-) (by the way, to the guy who said he spent days looking for a solution, you should dig around filesystem a bit more, sometimes the answer is right under your nose. It took me 2 minutes to find it.)

    bash-3.2# sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfsfix /dev/disk1s1

    Mounting volume… FAILED

    Attempting to correct errors…

    Processing $MFT and $MFTMirr…

    Reading $MFT… OK

    Reading $MFTMirr… OK

    Comparing $MFTMirr to $MFT… OK

    Processing of $MFT and $MFTMirr completed successfully.

    Setting required flags on partition… OK

    Going to empty the journal ($LogFile)… OK

    NTFS volume version is 3.1.

    NTFS partition /dev/disk1s1 was processed successfully.

  • matt

    tim, I have that error and my ntfs bootcamp partition is now invisible. disk utility won't let me mount it. i'm really p.o.'d. I'm also not nearly literate enough to understand how to fix this, could someone show me the light?

  • matt

    nevermind. I finally got rid of this shit. got paragon. I want to try to put this in perspective. I downloaded these two programs (stupid) to do one thing, make my ntfs partition read/write in osx. Instead of doing this, it takes away my ability to read the drive at all. Not being my area of expertise, my suggestion for the devs is to stop sucking. I know, not exactly constructive, but neither is reading through this bullshit page for three hours trying to fix this. Peace.

  • Edward

    I have installed the latest

    MacFUSE-2.0.3,2, NTFS-3G_1.5130u2-stable-catacombae, and Developer Tools xcode312_2621.

    I have run the strip command (BTW fuse.fs is not locaterd in Library/Filesystems, not

    System/Library/Filesystems).

    The old MacFuse worked just fine. I get the "failed to mount" error every time and I

    am absolutely going nuts.

    Someone please help.

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  • rs

    As per blog below, You will need to mount the drive using force option but before that you will need to manually create the volume Dir, hope this helps

    http://rajtalkontech.blogspot.com/2009/01/read-an…

  • jollyjoker

    Have you ever heared about Paragon NTFS for Mac :) Try google it ;) Have fun..

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  • http://osxpert.blogspot.com/ OSXPERT

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  • mknox

    As of 10.6 you can nativly read/write to any NTFS partition.

    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=7853…

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  • Jeremy Light

    I have used this product before and it worked very well to copy NTFS files and folders:

    http://www.sys-manage.com/PRODUCTS/CopyRight/tabi…

  • MJ

    Thank you very much mknox.

    The instructions there really worked!

  • http://www.itecnologici.com m@

    Hey guys, if you have Snow Leopard I suggest you to use iNTFS.. just a click and it will enable the write native support without having to struggle with Terminal.

    download it from here:
    http://www.itecnologici.com/?p=674&langswitch…

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  • Evan Graj

    Hello. I have been having problems with my NTFS drive and itunes when it tries to consolidate files on to my itune library located on the NTFS drive. I tried to look online for a solution and could not find one. Now I am having the issue that the my macbook pro sees the drive but its permissions are read only. After unistalling and reinstalling macfuse and ntfs 3g I still can not write to the external ntfs drive. Help. How can I get this to work? It used to be OK.

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  • Samaarsamboy618

    nice article. I was looking for this.

  • Blackbirdxx64

    I work with Mac and PC. So question is……with Windows 7 being so damned good why bother with Mac anyway. Hell guys if it aint broke dont fix it :) Bound to cause a few flames!

    • Tien Nguyen37

      I have been using Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium for about 4 years now. It is great!!! It gets the job done. It may not look fancy, and it works. That is what is important. I am planning on developing for the Apple iPad, and it requires a Mac OS X 10.6.6 right now. So, you use the right tool(s) for the job. I am an electronics “junkie”hehe. I enjoy having even old computers and electronics in my possessions.

    • Anonymous

      Because Windows 7 still comes up short of Mac OSX, which is obvious to anyone who uses both.

      The gap will only widen once OSX 10.7 is released (soon now).

      Windows 7, whilst much improved, is also far more vulnerable than OSX to malware as well, so if you like peace of mind that’s yet another reason to switch. That and access to the excellent software on Mac OSX on top of everything available for Windows or Linux.

    • Anonymous

      Because Windows 7 still comes up short of Mac OSX, which is obvious to anyone who uses both.

      The gap will only widen once OSX 10.7 is released (soon now).

      Windows 7, whilst much improved, is also far more vulnerable than OSX to malware as well, so if you like peace of mind that’s yet another reason to switch. That and access to the excellent software on Mac OSX on top of everything available for Windows or Linux.

      • TypeS

        This post is ubsurd unless taken us anything but an uninformed opinion. First all Windows 7 is lacking? Really… I guess if that can be defined as looking “cool”. I won’t argue either one is better, it’s preference. For my work in IT, gaming and general mucking around customizing my environment, I prefer Windows. Doesn’t make it a better OS than OS X.

        “Windows 7, whilst much improved, is also far more vulnerable than OSX to malware as well”

        I can help but laugh every time I hear this, especially at the person stating it. Do you have any proof? None cause there is nothing other that says OS X is any less vulnerable than Windows. Actually OS X is usually deemed to be more vulnerable and less secure than Windows because it is attacked far, far less than Windows and thus Apple isn’t made aware of unknown holes in code that can be exploited.

        If you say, that chance of getting attacked by malware is higher in a Windows environment, then yes you are correct but that -doesn’t- make Windows more vulnerable.

        Never surprises me that illogical stuff Mac fanboys will spear around.

        • Anonymous

          Have you actually used OSX? For me W7 feels like a somewhat lacking Tiger OSX 10.5, even then it lacks the many ways of sorting and viewing files and data that is in OSX and the sheer clarity of OSX’s screen and user interface. Which is why so many people are switching to the Mac and just about none are going the other way.

          Windows has millions of malware. The Mac only recently got a small handful of trojans that require the user to almost help install them. This is despite the 100s of millions of supposedly “technically sophisticated” Windows users many of whom seem to hate Apple with an almost psychotic irrationality. 

          As I have frequently pointed out if you printed out all the known malware in fine type in a 1000 page 2 column book the Mac malware would be the LAST 2 or 3 centimetres of the LAST column. 

          All the rest would be Windows, which is why Apple haters claim that so much software is written for their favourite OS. 

          Never surprises me just how dumb and ignorant Microsoft’s zombies can be.

          • Corpeus

            It never surprises me how many MAC Cultists apply to the see
            no evil, hear no evil crap that Jobs was able to brain wash the masses with. I
            guess ignorance is bliss.

            Apple was the safer platform for a long time. But not
            because of the reasons you think.

            Since it was a niche platform no one cared about writing
            viruses, Trojans, spyware etc. for the platform. There was simply no money in
            it.

            Now that the platform has gained more popularity (keeps on
            jumping between 7-10% of the market share) OSX is starting to see more and more
            malicious software. It will take some time but you will end up having to run a
            AV program on your MAC, don’t kid yourself.

            As for security, the last Computer Security conference in
            Vancouver proved that MAC is the easiest platform to hack into. As far as I
            recall it took them about 5 seconds or so to be able to hack into the system
            and run a malicious script.

            Finally, your average MAC cultist has the computer skills of
            a soiled diaper. They are the easiest to trick into running a malicious
            programs on their computers.

             

            In conclusion, a lot of the MAC users I ran in to are
            misinformed fanatical cultists who really don’t see anything past the crap that
            Apple feeds them. personally I’d like to see things from your point of view but
            I can’t seem to get my head that far up my ass.

          • Anonymous

            Mac OSX still has a tiny, tiny, infinitesimal, handful of malware, barely a dozen, and they are all Trojans which require granny to come downstairs in her nightdress and let the “nice” burglar in. Compare that to the many millions of Windows viruses, trojans, spyware, adware that infest that platform.

            Given that there are so many ignorant small minded and ill-informed PC users such as yourself and a huge number of Macs out there, you would think that with your incredible innate computer skills you’d be able to penetrate the Macs “feeble” defences. But then it is only 11 years since OSX has been out. That makes almost one malware per year. WOW!!! At that rate assuming there were no further viruses created for Windows HA! we’ll all be extinct before the Mac catches up to Windows’ deep shit.

            True there are a lot of really stupid, nay moronic, Mac users out there now (I do support), unfortunately nearly all are PC exports who know as much as you, who can’t post text without linefeeds and huge gaps between paragraphs. Could you please take them back where they belong. Knee deep in their own PC drool.

            btw The guy who hacked the Mac was one of those “cultists with the computer skills of a soiled diaper” who just happened to know of a flaw in OSX. There are some.

          • Corpeus

            “he knew of a flaw in
            osx”. Most malicious programs exploit a flaw in a os (any os). Thank you
            for stating the obvious Dr Phil. I see you have not read my post, just went straight into your pre-programmed
            Mac state of denial. Yes, there are not as many malicious apps for the osx.
            Unfortunately there is more than just 12. Mac’s are becoming the platform of
            choice for botnets. The simple fact that Mac cultists are in the state of
            denial that their computers are not as safe as advertised is one of the factors
            that makes it possible (the os being a Swiss cheese of security holes is another). I spent too much time fixing Macs
            to even argue with you about the obvious.

            As for rest of your comments
            please refer to the last paragraph from my previous post.

          • Anonymous

            In both recorded cases the hackers were given direct physical access to the Macs, the first took 30 minutes, the second took 2 minutes, not “5 seconds”.

            Flaws get spotted and patched. OSX gets regular security updates. Have you heard of any other successful hacks later than the two back in 2006 and 2009? 

            Still feasting on those I see! and please go for it, list this enormous number of Trojans, noting any that actually work.

            Then list those for Windows.

            You would I guess have trouble tying your shoelaces let alone “fix Macs” as you claim. For real laughs why not try “in my spare time as an astronaut”.

            btw Still having trouble with basic typing I see.

          • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_52M5MWEL2NPIBIWIQHLTGFUU7A Kevin

            I think you are a little deluded peterbreis. To think OSX is way superior to Window 7 is basically an astoundingly  un-knowledgeable comment to make and leads me to think that you have never really used it. All your points mark your usage levels of operating systems and systems in general to be at the basic home user level at best. I am going to throw in my two cents from my experience. My background is as follows. I’m a Windows user at heart and have been using it since 3.11. Although this is the case I am not a fan boy and am open to other systems. As such i’m going to try to put across an objective view from my opinion. I have been professionally developing software and advanced business systems for  nearly 14 years.  In my current position (5 years) I have been working with both MAC OSX, OSX server and the windows platforms on a daily basis for development, networking, media (video and image processing) all many other business related activities. 
            First up, In response to all the malware discussion, yes you are correct there are many thousands more viruses and malware programs targeted at PC’s and the general reason is exactly what Corpeaus wrote, many many more systems running Windows and much greater paybacks for hijacking it – both in financial terms and in knowledge terms (think business sensitive data). However, the security update systems from MS FAR outweigh those from Apple for this exact reason. MS has been dealing with people attempting to hack it’s systems for far longer than Apple and because of MS huge reliance / integration in the business world they have to be dam fast at fixing any exposed vulnerabilities. If you bother to spend any time reading the security blogs you would see that Apple’s response time to any vulnerabilities exposed is the slowest of any OS manufacturer. For the moment at least this is not a massive thing because business does not use OSX or Apple in general – obviously there are exceptions to this but you have to accept the 98/99% of the general business world runs on Windows. One thing is sure though, to think that Apple has some magic wand of security and 100% code coverage with 0 back door vulnerabilities is massively delusional – whether the attacks have happened yet or not!!

            Getting on to other things, OSX has a wonderfully simple interface and is great at doing all the little jobs well. Making a nice image gallery, using a bit of photoshop or bridge. Making a few movie edits. No DLL hell. Easy installation / un installation of software etc etc. There are many things the mac does well. I’m happy and have no problem to write that. However…. in saying that….. as an advanced user I find that many things that are simple on a PC are an absolute pain on OSX – way to many to list. My gripes are not around basic home use, as I said for that kind of basic usage the mac is great. In business / advanced situations however the mac’s frailties become apparent – at least in my experience. Connecting to a network server takes an absolute age, writing files onto a NTFS storage system is massively flaky, opening a directory with more than a few hundred files takes an eternity. The support apple provides for both software and hardware is astoundingly awful. Two week turn around on faulty equipment compared to next day or even same day for dell, hp, toshiba and other hardware suppliers. OSX server is quite possibly the worst OS ever made. Massively un reliable, constant crashing which on many occasions have forced total system re-installs when it refuses to boot up. On an Apple certified server course we were told that Apple uses Exchange for its email system as it’s OSX server is not stable enough to handle being a mail server – many mouths open at that statement I can tell you, especially as a number of us were setting up business critical  final cut server video processing clusters on this OS as apple forced us to!!! 

            So, as i’m now a bit bored of typing, i’m going to sum up my thoughts. Both OSX and Win 7 have their benefits and there drawbacks. What’s important – as always – is to choose the right OS or software for the job. Some things mac does better, some things windows does better, that’s a fact. In my humble opinion OSX is the best OS for new computer users who have little requirement to do much more than the basics. They have lovely design and are simple to plug in and use It’s still also the best, albeit only very marginally, if doing things like 3d animation of video editing. Our benchmarks saw windows 7 very close and in some tests faster than OSX when performing these tasks on very similar spec machines. For me by far the best all-round OS is Windows 7. It can do all the same things as OSX, maybe it doesn’t look as pretty and maybe in some very small cases it is not as fast or sleek but for anyone who wants to do more advanced system work, any form of decent networking setup, general business tasks, play games, run a web server or any combination of the above plus more etc etc etc i’m sorry but OSX is just not as good in my experience. I think 5 years of daily usage allows me the ability to think that. The best server OS for high end users is Linux but Win server 2008 R2 is a very good server also. OSX server should be binned and never spoke of again.

            Rant over!

  • James

    This is exactly what I need. Thanks, James Koowie.com

  • Tien Nguyen37

    MacFUSE(NTFS-3G) is great! I was able to read a Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium partition. However, I was not able to write to it. I was testing out a MacBook Pro implemented onto a Fujitsu A6020 LifeBook computer! From what I have read, I recommend just sticking with one or the other.

  • http://twitter.com/net0krat James Woolley

    got nsfs working from mbp, but its way slow :(
    Jim cometocapetown.com

  • Natasha

    This worked wonderfully for me. 15 minutes and I could write to my NTFS 500 gig drive, that I’d formatted (and already filled up) from a Windows computer.
    Thanks – especially to Amit Singh. Bright fella.

  • ben

    As mknox points out below, 10.6 Snow Leopard now has native NTFS support so you should no longer need Paragon or MacFUSE. You do have to manually enable write access. First method in the thread is a little cumbersome. A quicker one is on the second page, post #34 from iBlacky:

    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=785376&page=2

    you can just wrap mount_ntfs in a shell script to add the “write” option.

    • Nguye^~n Khoa Tie^’n

      thank you to mknox and ben. i did not know that 10.6 snow leopard has native ntfs support. no wonder when i was restoring my itunes backuped from windows, it restored onto a mac itunes as well

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  • Ligaya

    Is it possible to do it the other way around… meaning, to make an NTFS-formatted PC read a partitioned NTFS/Mac OS X Journaled HDD?

  • Josh

    Honestly I think the only reason Apple didn’t allow read/write access to NTFS drives is because the large ammount of CRAP and service files that Mac OS X puts on EVERY single directory/folder it opens up. I don’t think Windows users would appreciate seeing .DS_Store and .AppleDouble folders and files all throughout their system, but apparently since this is “only done on removable drives” is not a true statement, on Windows, when I remotely log into my Mac via the network, I can see there are many .DS_Store files in my user account folder+scattered throughout the system. So this may be one of the reason. My backup for FAT32 is simply that Apple uses a different type of driver for it. 

    • Anonymous

      It might surprise you to know what shit Windows puts in its directories that I have to clear out.

  • J

    I currently have Parallels 6 for Mac OX Lion (with Windows 7 64-bit) and I don’t have to do all of this complicated procedures, taken that I’m new to Mac. With the issue of formatting for each individual OS, I found parallels to be the answer for me. I still run both OS’s and by selecting to open the external HD through parallels it works natively on windows you can read and write but on mac of course you can only read. I must say that the external HD works faster on Parallels that its actually slower on my windows machine (go figure). However, on Mac, the hard drive is extremely faster reading and copying files than windows (got to love Mac). Hope this helps for those that need answers.

    • mikeru22

      Perfect, thanks. Parallels works great for this and I don’t have to worry about corrupting my entire disk. Good thing I already had Parallels, though.

  • J!

    Am I missing something?  This article suggests tools but stops short of actually giving a “how-to” on actually using them…

  • Goevangelinego

    Thank you. Really. Thank You.

  • Anonymous

    In reply to Blackbirdxx64.
    Really! That’s your helpful comment?
    Most of us work with both systems on a daily basis, (obviously you don’t), and we all look for better ways to make it easy for us to work with both systems on a daily basis.
    As more devices are created, it’s sad to see that compatibility is not a priority, so we have to find ways to work with all of them, regardless of the manufacturer/developer.

    Our world is much broader than yours, that’s all.