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I am running Ubuntu 16.10 and during setup I added my data drive which is ntfs, to automount in /etc/fstab file. The entry looks like this -

UUID=EA469A60469A2D77   /alpha  ntfs-3g rw,permissions,umask=0022,user,exec,uid=1000,gid=1000,locale=en_US.UTF-8  0       0

I would like to know what I am doing wrong and how to get write access to the mounted NTFS partition.

EDIT1:

prenx@prenx4x:~$ sudo lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,SIZE,MOUNTPOINT,LABEL
NAME   FSTYPE   SIZE MOUNTPOINT LABEL
sdb           111.8G            
├─sdb2 swap    18.6G [SWAP]     
└─sdb1 ext4    93.2G /          
sdc             3.7T            
├─sdc2 ntfs     3.7T /zeta      Zeta
└─sdc1          128M            
sda           953.9G            
├─sda4 ntfs   952.9G /alpha     ALPHA
├─sda2 vfat      99M            
├─sda5 ntfs     450M            
├─sda3          128M            
└─sda1 ntfs     300M            Recovery

After changing any option I test it using mkdir-

prenx@prenx4x:/alpha$ mkdir a
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘a’: Read-only file system
prenx@prenx4x:/alpha$ sudo mkdir a
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘a’: Read-only file system

Also I am unable to paste or create anything in any sub-folder as well.

The Prenx
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2 Answers2

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If the NTFS drives are mounting as read-only, its probably because Ubuntu thinks their filesystems are unclean, probably due to hibernation, or a damaged file system. Do this:

in Windows

  • boot into Windows
  • open the Power control panel
  • choose change what the power buttons do
  • choose change options that are unavailable
  • uncheck fast startup
  • close the Power control panel
  • open an administrative command prompt window
  • type powercfg /h off
  • type chkdsk /f c:
  • approve to run chkdsk at next reboot
  • type chkdsk /f x: (replacing "x" with drive letters of other visible NTFS partitions)
  • reboot into Windows to let chkdsk run on drive C:
Community
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heynnema
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    you can stop at the point *close the Power control panel*, below points quite complicated and may not need for some cases. it worked with for me with Ubuntu 16.10 and Windows 10 – vanduc1102 Feb 14 '17 at 15:45
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    @vanduc1102 No, you need to follow the **complete** instructions that I've given. – heynnema Feb 14 '17 at 15:46
  • This worked perfectly. Thank you! BTW I did need to run chkdsk on both drives; I checked, out of curiosity. – user178602 Jan 11 '18 at 23:51
  • Nope, not on mine. Mounts fine under windows. Mounts and writes fine under one linux system. Just not the other one! – Owl Aug 16 '19 at 16:24
  • @Owl please start a new question to get some help. Thanks! – heynnema Aug 16 '19 at 17:17
  • Actually, for me @vanduc1102 was right, it was all that was needed, NTFS partition now mounts as writable. – SlimDeluxe Sep 15 '19 at 11:58
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Using rw, permissions, umask=0022, user, exec, uid=1000, and gid=1000 seems excessive.

The Official Documentation is pretty straight forward.

Something like this should work for your purposes:

UUID=EA469A60469A2D77 /alpha ntfs-3g defaults,windows_names,locale=en_US.utf8 0 0

AnotherKiwiGuy
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  • I tried these options but they are also not working for me. – The Prenx Dec 04 '16 at 23:31
  • What happens exactly? Can you explain in a little further detail? Also, can you post the output of `sudo lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,SIZE,MOUNTPOINT,LABEL` in your question? – AnotherKiwiGuy Dec 04 '16 at 23:32
  • Also about using all these many options, I reached here one option at a time, but none of those worked for me. – The Prenx Dec 04 '16 at 23:32
  • I know this may be a silly question, but have you done `sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g`? – AnotherKiwiGuy Dec 05 '16 at 00:08
  • Yes. I looked at some other forums, and they suggested sudo apt-get purge ntfsprogs, sudo apt-get purge ntfs-3g, sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g which I did. Plus the partitions are getting mounted as read only. – The Prenx Dec 05 '16 at 00:13
  • What about using `/dev/sda4` instead of `UUID=EA469A60469A2D77`? – AnotherKiwiGuy Dec 05 '16 at 00:14
  • when I changed to /dev/sd4 from UUID, ubuntu didn't like that and it hanged and refused to boot. – The Prenx Dec 05 '16 at 00:28