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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. I'm not sure if we'll see it in knoppix by Steve+'Rim'+Jobs · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Surely it is illegal to copy the ntfs.sys driver and distribute it in another operating system, seeing as how it is a part of Windows.

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

      Wouldn't need to copy it. At least, not to distribute, anyway.

      Use the copy off the hard drive. Mount it in read-only using the normal way, copy it to the Knoppix ramdrive, and then run the driver from there.

      --
      Tiggs
      "120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
    2. Re:I'm not sure if we'll see it in knoppix by k98sven · · Score: 5, Interesting

      and how to actually load the ntfs.sys file from an NTFS filesystem. It is not entirely a chicken and egg situation, as Linux already have NTFS read support

      Um... I'm wondering here: How does Windows load ntfs.sys from an NTFS partition???

  2. Knoppix by arikb · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I think that we'll probably see this in Knoppix pretty soon.

    I wonder how it's going to be done in Knoppix, without distributing a commercial DLL with the CD. Perhaps the following scheme could work:

    1. Look for NTFS partitions and mount them with the R/O driver
    2. Scan those folders for the dll and copy it into the ramdisk
    3. Unmount the partitions, then remount them with the Windows dll for r/w

    Tricky. Depends on having the DLL somewhere on the disk.

    -- Arik

  3. Useful by mc_wilson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This would be very useful if you have an unbootable windows partition. I had problems with my logon file in XP once. I had replaced it to try something and ended up hosing my system. I had the file backed up but I couldn't use the Windows XP command line recovery because it couldn't logon and I couldn't copy it back over in Linux because of poor NTFS support. This would help people being able to fix the same or similar problems.

    --
    Aston Games