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

Josh Charles says on January 17th, 2007 at 4:09 pm

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

eduo says on January 18th, 2007 at 6:57 am

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?

OsakanOne says on January 19th, 2007 at 3:15 pm

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

Could you host it somewhere a little more accessable?

RMCan says on January 19th, 2007 at 7:09 pm

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 says on January 19th, 2007 at 11:43 pm

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 says on January 20th, 2007 at 8:19 am

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 says on January 20th, 2007 at 9:18 am

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 says on January 22nd, 2007 at 1:14 pm

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 says on January 22nd, 2007 at 7:46 pm

I’m getting the same error — help!

Petes says on January 24th, 2007 at 7:32 am

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 The 0.1.0b006 is badly outdated.

Leon says on January 24th, 2007 at 7:53 am

@Petes: Updated. Thanks.

Flocca says on January 24th, 2007 at 9:28 am

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 says on January 25th, 2007 at 2:24 am

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

Leon says on January 25th, 2007 at 4:36 am

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

Pablo says on January 25th, 2007 at 7:36 am

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 says on January 25th, 2007 at 11:44 am

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 says on January 25th, 2007 at 1:28 pm

Solution for macfuse_required here:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/i.....p;p=278080

joe says on January 26th, 2007 at 4:40 am

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 says on January 26th, 2007 at 8:24 pm

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 says on February 6th, 2007 at 8:15 am

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) says on February 6th, 2007 at 9:01 am

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 says on February 7th, 2007 at 5:49 am

New link:

http://chucker.mystfans.com/op.....116-r3.dmg

NR says on February 7th, 2007 at 9:06 am

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 says on February 10th, 2007 at 6:18 am

EXCELLENT advice up to the last Terminal command…

in TERMINAL I typed:
sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk0s2 /Volumes/\342\200\235Windows\342\200\235 -o ping_diskarb,volname=\342\200\235Windows\342\200\235

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 says on February 10th, 2007 at 6:57 am

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 says on February 10th, 2007 at 6:34 pm

nice trick! got it up and running

vmf says on February 11th, 2007 at 11:37 am

cannot download ntfs-3g package, broken link,
is there another location to download?

Bob says on February 11th, 2007 at 1:13 pm

> vmf: cannot download ntsf-3g…

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

gonzalo says on February 15th, 2007 at 6:19 pm

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?

Damilola says on February 18th, 2007 at 8:11 pm

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

Josh says on February 20th, 2007 at 4:02 pm

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 says on February 22nd, 2007 at 1:56 am

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 says on February 22nd, 2007 at 3:17 pm

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/shadowofg.....070207.dmg

That was mentioned at
http://forums.applenova.com/sh.....amp;page=8

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 says on February 23rd, 2007 at 7:51 am

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/\342\200\235Windows\342\200\235 -o ping_diskarb,volname=\342\200\235Windows\342\200\235
mount_fusefs: /Volumes/”Windows”: No such file or directory

any help???
Thank You.

Peter Savas says on February 23rd, 2007 at 9:05 pm

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 says on February 25th, 2007 at 5:16 am

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 says on February 25th, 2007 at 6:03 am

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 says on March 1st, 2007 at 12:19 am

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 says on March 1st, 2007 at 12:34 am

…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 says on March 3rd, 2007 at 2:46 pm

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 says on March 11th, 2007 at 5:31 pm

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

Andre says on March 16th, 2007 at 9:29 pm

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$

John says on March 20th, 2007 at 12:01 pm

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

Joseph Forte says on April 25th, 2007 at 3:25 pm

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

pSyGet says on April 26th, 2007 at 12:19 am

hey it worked wonderfully for me, thank you very much

eike says on April 26th, 2007 at 1:55 pm

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

thx
Eike

gelo says on April 27th, 2007 at 8:08 am

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

Andreas says on May 10th, 2007 at 1:33 pm

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 says on May 12th, 2007 at 9:36 am

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 says on May 15th, 2007 at 6:12 am

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

Pratik says on May 20th, 2007 at 11:45 pm

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″

Sharon says on May 26th, 2007 at 12:04 pm

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 says on May 26th, 2007 at 3:16 pm

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 says on May 27th, 2007 at 12:59 am

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 says on May 27th, 2007 at 3:10 pm

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 says on May 30th, 2007 at 6:39 am

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 says on June 5th, 2007 at 6:32 pm

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?

Gay Blowc says on June 5th, 2007 at 6:52 pm

This is really fresh idea of the design of the site! I seldom met such in Internet. Good Work dude!

i says on June 18th, 2007 at 4:15 pm

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 says on June 20th, 2007 at 9:58 am

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/.....-0.4.0.dmg and NTFS-3G 2020070116-r4 http://chucker.mystfans.com/op.....116-r4.dmg ) 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 says on June 20th, 2007 at 2:33 pm

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 says on June 20th, 2007 at 3:32 pm

http://chucker.mystfans.com/op.....116-r4.dmg 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 says on June 20th, 2007 at 3:33 pm

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

Sherwin says on June 28th, 2007 at 6:47 am

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 says on July 14th, 2007 at 6:55 pm

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 says on July 14th, 2007 at 7:14 pm

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 says on July 16th, 2007 at 10:46 pm

Worked ^^

Brandon says on July 20th, 2007 at 3:16 am

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 says on July 25th, 2007 at 11:29 am

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 says on August 2nd, 2007 at 7:14 pm

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 says on August 3rd, 2007 at 4:01 am

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 says on August 3rd, 2007 at 2:19 pm

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!

Max S. says on August 9th, 2007 at 8:17 pm

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 says on August 13th, 2007 at 11:43 am

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???

Greg says on August 22nd, 2007 at 7:27 pm

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 says on August 23rd, 2007 at 2:57 pm

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 says on September 2nd, 2007 at 11:51 pm

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 says on September 4th, 2007 at 3:23 pm

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 says on September 6th, 2007 at 5:12 am

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 says on September 8th, 2007 at 1:12 pm

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 says on September 13th, 2007 at 8:25 pm

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/i.....ntry278080

Rye says on September 20th, 2007 at 11:32 pm

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

huan says on September 22nd, 2007 at 6:07 am

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.

Dane Glerum says on September 23rd, 2007 at 9:52 am

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 says on September 25th, 2007 at 11:37 pm

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.

CK says on October 9th, 2007 at 12:01 am

thanks, dude. It works.

منتديات says on October 12th, 2007 at 8:06 am

it work as charm
thanks

Brainkite says on October 14th, 2007 at 7:17 am

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 says on October 20th, 2007 at 1:00 am

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!!

Fabian says on November 1st, 2007 at 11:32 am

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

JoJo says on November 2nd, 2007 at 8:17 am

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 says on November 2nd, 2007 at 11:49 am

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 says on November 2nd, 2007 at 4:20 pm

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

Thanks

Josh

Z says on November 3rd, 2007 at 1:09 pm

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 says on November 5th, 2007 at 4:44 am

@Z

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

ryall says on November 7th, 2007 at 7:41 pm

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

freeballer says on November 8th, 2007 at 2:06 am

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!

Ivan Neto says on November 10th, 2007 at 1:27 pm

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?

ParanoidX says on November 13th, 2007 at 7:14 am

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/i.....p;p=278080)
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 says on November 14th, 2007 at 11:38 am

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

LS11