Q: will mountain lion read/write to an NTFS external hard drive?

Only read, unless you install a third party app.

It can natively read it, but you'll need third-party software to write. Paragon and Tuxera are pay apps, and NTFS-3G is free, but slower.

OS-X does read NTFS.  It does not, however, write.  Some of the external drive manufacturers have come out with some custom drivers that support writing NTFS.  I wouldn't use them as NTFS can be finicky....

Format the drive as FAT32 or create a partitiion on your drive FAT32 to allow read/write between the two os's.

exFAT is a better format solution if you don't need to access it on a Mac with less than OS X 10.6.6 installed.

install osxfuse (current 2.5.0)

(not macfuse which is no longer maintained)

https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/downloads

install ntfs-3g (most recent binary 2010.10.2)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/catacombae/

free version old-ish but ok-ish (gives an ignorable but annoying warning

"Did not receive a signal within 15.000000 seconds." on every mount ).

the workaround for the

"Did not receive a signal within 15.000000 seconds."

warning works for me as well

https://github.com/bfleischer/fuse_wait

Appologize for hi-jacking the thread somewhat, but I was going to post pretty much the same question.

I currently have a Windows PC. I have an external hard drive formatted in NTFS. On this external hard drive I have pictures, MP3 files, iTunes folder (which contains all the stuff I have on my iPhone, iPad and iTunes libraries).

I'm planning on getting an iMac early next year and was wondering if I would be able to connect the NTFS external hard drive to my iMac, and then basically copy the contents of it to the relevant place on my iMac?

Thanks.

tal1971 wrote:

 

Appologize for hi-jacking the thread somewhat, but I was going to post pretty much the same question.

 

I currently have a Windows PC. I have an external hard drive formatted in NTFS. On this external hard drive I have pictures, MP3 files, iTunes folder (which contains all the stuff I have on my iPhone, iPad and iTunes libraries).

 

I'm planning on getting an iMac early next year and was wondering if I would be able to connect the NTFS external hard drive to my iMac, and then basically copy the contents of it to the relevant place on my iMac?

 

Thanks.

Yes.

Thanks very much for the help BobTheFisherman, the helps much appreciated

I have read that there is native NTFS r/w support in Mac OS X, which is not enabled by default.

This is the method I have found (I haven't tried yet):

• Uninstall other NTFS software, like Paragon, Tuxera or NTFS-3G.
• Run Terminal in Spotlight.
• Type "diskutil info /Volumes/volname", where volname is the name of the NTFS volume. From the output, copy the Volume UUID value to the clipboard.
• Type "sudo nano /etc/fstab."
• Type "UUID=xxx-xxx-xxx none ntfs rw", where xxx-xxx-xxx is the UUID you copied.
• Save and quit nano by typing Control-X, Y, and then Enter.
• Restart your system.

I answer myself:  It does not work.

(Mountain Lion and an external drive connected by USB)

Today I can read/write ntfs in osx mountian lion 10.8.2  ,no third party installed. I'm surprise!

You can read the drive, but to write to it you need another application. Paralles, tuxera and ntfs-3g work. This link will explain it to you http://appducate.com/2013/01/read-write-to-windows-ntfs-partition-on-mac/

Well .. i was facing same problem and i've found a solution that works perfectly for me and i can write on NTFS:

1- Install OSXFUSE == > The most important part is to check the compatibility layer within installation otherwise it wont work

2- Install fuse_wait pkg

3- Install ntfs-3g 2010.10.2 and remove the MacFuse from the customized installation (if you couldn't, just after installation, go to preference and remove the MacFuse)

4- Reboot your macbook, et Voila .. it'll work

i've got this info from this link

https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/wiki/NTFS-3G

Hope that would help

Cheers, Soha