solution for NTFS formatted drives that works

try

sudo -i

and type your root password

that should do

If you know that the drive is disk1s2 from the output of diskutil list, then the following will also work, though better it is scripted. Also, this will not work on USB sticks as there is no UUID.

Shell:

Just thought I'd add my solution/work-around for file transfers. I use either a FAT32 Thumb/Flash drive, SDHC memory stick for cameras, a 120GB FAT32-formatted portable HDD or a WDC 1TB NAS drive formatted NTFS connected to my Wireless Router. I originally did it with a Snow Leopard MacBook Pro but have upgraded to Mountain Lion.

Hi Thawn,

I applied ur below method and it worked for me one time. Next time I plugged in my ext HDD its read only again. Now when I re tried these commands, nothing is happening. The ext HDD is still read only.

It would be great if you can give some insights.

____________________________

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.

_______________________________________

Hi All, Thanks for sharing the info. I follow the instructions and found:

1.my /etc/fstab is empty, I just found a /etc/fstab.hd with a warning text inside

2.I found no UUID after I type "diskutil info /Volumes/Data | grep UUID"

Here is my "diskutil info /Volumes/Data"

Device Identifier: disk1s1

Device Node: /dev/disk1s1

Part of Whole: disk1

Device / Media Name: Untitled 1

Volume Name: HD-PCTU3

Escaped with Unicode: HD-PCTU3

Mounted: Yes

Mount Point: /Volumes/HD-PCTU3

Escaped with Unicode: /Volumes/HD-PCTU3

File System Personality: NTFS

Type (Bundle): ntfs

Name (User Visible): Windows NT File System (NTFS)

Partition Type: Windows_NTFS

OS Can Be Installed: No

Media Type: Generic

Protocol: USB

SMART Status: Not Supported

Total Size: 1.0 TB (1000204828672 Bytes) (exactly 1953525056 512-Byte-Blocks)

Volume Free Space: 910.2 GB (910183661568 Bytes) (exactly 1777702464 512-Byte-Blocks)

Device Block Size: 512 Bytes

Read-Only Media: No

Read-Only Volume: Yes

Ejectable: Yes

Whole: No

Internal: No

----------------------

Any advice for me? I have used the LABEL instead of UUID and after reboot my external harddrive (HD-PCTU3)

appears on the desktop. I guess it simply ignores my /etc/fstab setting.

Hi, I found the same situation at the begining, No UUID information. But it works well when I just put LABEL instead of UUID. Notice: there should be no quotes or spaces appeared on LABEL value.

It does work on the newest version of mountain lion 10.8.4, in my case.

After did that, you don't have to repeat to run Terminal to find your NTFS partition. You may add Macintosh HD\Volumes to Favorites of the Finder, then it will turn out so convenient. As the Volumes folder is hidden, you need to search it with File visbility in invisible items, just via "Find".

Have fun.

can you run a one line terminal command to find a single NTFS drive find it's name and mount it ?

That would be good,

Thanks.

This method works for writing to the NTFS drive if it is connected to the Mac, however not when trying to access the drive through the network from a Windows computer. When I try to write to the drive this way from Windows 8 I am getting the error "The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error." Anyone know of a solution? BTW, I'm not sure if it matters, but I am using Mavericks 10.9.

SOLVED >>

I have the latest Paragon software +27" imac 5k retina (El Capitan) - but was still getting the dreaded 'The operation can't be completed because an item with the name ' ' already exists'. I had 10 hard drives of photographic work and this was a real nightmare.

I found 2 solutions that work for this:

1) I did a work around by formatting a 1TB hard drive as FAT32 - then used an old Windows laptop to transfer folders from the NTFS hard drive to the Fat32 hard drive (make sure you have originally formatted the FAT32 properly on your mac). When you drag to folder accross, a dialog pops up saying that 'Macintosh Application Info : Mac_Metadata:$DATA' are in the folder - but just click (do you want to proceed anyway) 'Yes to All' and the folders will transfer to the FAT32. Then you attach FAT32 hard drive to your mac and then transfer them over to your Mac Extended Drive.

2) I installed windows 10 onto my imac 5k retina (El Capitan) (i purchased the usb drive version - but downloaded the 64Bit windows 10 ISO directly from Microsoft + had a blank 16gig flash drive attached to the back and it installed with no problem via Bootcamp using the USB product key)

FOR SOME REASON THE PROBLEM WENT AWAY! I have no idea how or why this problem was fixed - but now i can just drag and drop my old NTFS folders onto my Mac Extended with no problem while using MAC OS!!