solution for NTFS formatted drives that works

Mac OS X does not natively work with NTFS.

Third party software is required for OS X to support NTFS.

Maybe if you explain exactly what you are attempting to do we might be able to come up with a solution for you.

Allan

I just updated to 10.8.4 and this method still works:

1. plug your drive in (I'll assume it is labeled "Data", you can find out the label by opening disk utility)
2. open a terminal window
3. type (replace Data with the name of your drive):
   diskutil info /Volumes/Data | grep UUID
4. copy the volume uuid (in this example :EF6B132A-A6AD-43F1-B571-3C4B3CD79619)
5. type (all on one line and including the quotation marks):
   sudo echo "UUID=EF6B132A-A6AD-43F1-B571-3C4B3CD79619 none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse" >> /etc/fstab
6. reboot
7. the disk will not show up in your finder or on the desktop. The reason for that is the nobrowse option which is necessary for this to work in OSX 10.8.x. Personally, I think this is just harassment by Apple. To access the disk, you need to open a terminal and type:
   open /Volumes/Data
8. voila, a finder window showing your disk will open and will allow you to write to the disk.

Message was edited by: thawn1

it does not matter if there is a space around the >> or not.

Just for clarification and replying to your question in another thread:

the command in point 5 above is a one-liner that does the following:

sudo <- get super user privileges to be allowed to create/write to the file /etc/fstab (you will be asked for your password)

echo <- output the part between the quotation marks to whatever comes after the >>

"UUID=EF6B132A-A6AD-43F1-B571-3C4B3CD79619 none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse" <-the line that should be written

>> /etc/fstab <- append the ouput of the echo command to the file /etc/fstab if the file does not exist, it is created. it is important to have two >> because one > would overwrite the file!

I hope this helps.

No sorry. I prefer to post here where it may help other people as well.

Yes. You need a separate line in your /etc/fstab for each NTFS drive you want to write to.But you only need to do it once for each drive (not every time you plug it in). Also, if you do not need to connect the drive to a windows pc, you can always reformat the new drive with HFS+ (tha native apple file system).

I prefer this method over using third party software like NTFS-3G because I do not need to install any software which might corrupt my system, but then again, I only have one NTFS drive which I rarely use for data exchange with windows computers.

The command does that already: >> APPENDS the line to the file, so if there is already a line there, a new line is created at the end of the file.

I suggest, you get the computer and try it out for yourself, then it will become clear. I think your original question is answered: yes, you can write to NTFS drives on a mac (either using 3rd party software or the method described above).

Tha major drawback of the method I described is this part:

1. the disk will not show up in your finder or on the desktop. [...] To access the disk, you need to open a terminal and type (replace Data with the name of your drive):
   open /Volumes/Data
2. voila, a finder window showing your disk will open and will allow you to write to the disk.

this means, that after plugging in, the drive will not show up in finder until you access it via a terminal window. But you can always use another file manager like muCommander which will show the drive.

I hope you will enjoy your new mac (which despite the NTFS hiccup is imho still a better product than a windows pc).

One more remark: to eject the drive, you also need a terminal window and type (replace Data with the name of your drive):

diskutil eject /Volumes/Data

Message was edited by: thawn1