Too good to be true
So after playing around with Ubuntu today, it turns out I didn't solve my problem with accessing the windows partition. I can read it but not save to it, so this system is still useless for dual booting. As it turns out, it's just not supported at all by Linux. Well it is in a flimsy 'don't do it' kind of way. After an hour of searching, the best recommendation I can find is to create a Windows partition in the older FAT format (a format Linux can write to), and make it the dedicated 'transfer' partition.
So I installed some software called GParted to resize my windows NTFS drive, so I can create a new partition in the FAT format. Of course as is the theme with everything else so far, it doesn't work. After using the admittedly nice interface of GParted, I resized my NTFS windows partition, and clicked 'apply'.
Wow - something that just works for once, right?
Wrong!
All of my partitions are on the same drive, including Ubuntu's installation partition. So logically the drive is always busy - loading my operating system. No amount of rebooting will change that. Essentially this means that the feature doesn't work at all (unless I get down and dirty on the good old command line).
During my google aided troubleshooting I found this interesting link: 10 things that make ubuntu a neophyte's distribution. Essentially what we have is a group of linux enthusiasts proclaiming Ubuntu as the new convert's distribution. Perhaps they'll be interested to read the thoughts of one of these new converts.
posted by Chris at 4:26 PM
3 Comments:
Your best bet is to try Captive NTFS. Captive doesn't work like the standard NTFS module, it uses Wine to actually use the NTFS driver from Windows itself. This way, it's more stable and less problem-prone. Since you've got Windows installed on the machine as well, you don't have to worry about licensing issues (if that's a concern for you). I don't know how well it works on Ubuntu, but this thread has some thoughts on getting it to work.
Another possibility is to use an EXT2/3 driver in Windows to access your data when you need to. The EXT2/3 drivers are much more stable on Windows than the NTFS drivers are on Linux. You can store your data on the Linux partition instead of the Windows one.
Finally, my recommendation is to try and cobble together a second machine to play on. In my experience, dual-booting is too much of a PITA to make it worthwhile.
1:46 AM
If you want to resize your NTFS partition, the best bet is to boot into Windows and use the disk management tool there to do it. Shrink your NTFS partition down, and create a FAT32 partition, and you should be good to go.
This would be easier than getting the Captive NTFS driver going, but of course Captive would be the best solution. It's up to you whether it's worth the extra effort for Captive.
One good thing: if you have Captive working, and your Windows ever gets messed up, you could boot into Linux and work on the Windows system from there. For example, if you got a virus that locked itself into place under Windows, that virus would be defenceless against Linux.
7:10 AM
Thanks for the resonses:
Spoonman; thanks for the link to the ntfs utility. Unfortunately for me, i'm thoroughly unable to install it. Your second suggestion however is a good idea, and I have found windows utilities for browsing an ext3 partition.
Unfortunately the need for such a utility has passed, as I opted for a complete repartition of my entire hard disk. I still had the original Dell partitions, and those things had to bloody go. My new partition scheme is:
4GB - Windows XP (NTFS)
4GB - Ubuntu (Ext3)
1GB - Linux Swap
50GB - FAT32 - mounted in Linux as /media/share
From now on I just drop everything on the Fat32 partition. When I have enough more accumulated junk to fill a DVD, I back it up.It's working well for me so far!
2:02 PM
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