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Using the Real ntfs.sys Driver Under Linux

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the some-serious-duct-tape dept.

caseih writes "A very neat hack uses the real ntfs.sys driver (obtained from your own windows XP partition and used via a wine-like layer (borrowed from ReactOS) to mount an ntfs partion with full read/write access. While not an ideal solution and certainly not free as in speech, this is an ideal stop-gap measure for many people trying out linux. I think that we'll probably see this in Knoppix pretty soon."

5 of 548 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How about the other way around by homer_ca · · Score: 5, Informative

    Merry Christmas. Here you go:

    Explore2fs

  2. Another legal way to deal with the driver by unfortunateson · · Score: 5, Informative

    It would not seem unreasonable for the ntfs driver to be copied to a USB key or other media to be used at boot time.

    Optimally, like the other suggestions, this driver should be moved during config time, but I would be willing to load it my USB doohickey prior to booting Knoppix/Mandrake Live/whatevernix.

    I have valid Windows NT/2000/XP licenses on my machine, or I wouldn't have the NTFS partition to begin with. Maybe that's not a guaranteed assumption, and IANAL, but I don't think it would put too many MS lawyers on alert if it were done that way.

    Perhaps a copyright/license file stating "These files are to be used on computer systems with valid Windows NT/2000/XP licenses only." when they are copied to the USB Key.

    --
    Design for Use, not Construction!
  3. Re:I'm not sure if we'll see it in knoppix by mystik · · Score: 5, Informative

    The same way grub or lilo loads linux from a reiserfs or ext2/3 partition --- rudimentary read-only access is coded into the bootloader.

    --
    Why aren't you encrypting your e-mail?
  4. Re:I'm not sure if we'll see it in knoppix by Nevo · · Score: 5, Informative

    NTLDR does the dirty work.

    NTLDR contains a mini-NTFS filesystem driver and mini registry parser. NTLDR reads the registry and determines all of the boot-start device drivers. NTLDR loads those drivers into RAM, then loads the kernel and the HAL.

    NTLDR then passes control of the machine to the kernel, along with a pointer to the in-RAM loaded drivers so that the kernel can start those drivers.

  5. Re:I'm not sure if we'll see it in knoppix by caseih · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you read the web page and try out the driver you'll find it does exactly this. It uses code from the ntfs project (libntfs) to grab the ntfs.sys file and copy it over to use it. Therefore no distribution of microsoft binaries is needed. If it can't find the driver on your hard drive, it can download it from microsoft.com from xp sp1 (which has some interesting legal implications).