Mac can't see NTFS files

Question

Level 1

25 points

Mac can't see NTFS files

I have a 160Gb external UDB drive (Toshiba Gigastore) that I've repartitioned from being 100% NTFS into a 50Gb primary Fat32 partition and a 100Gb primary NTFS partition.

I was hoping to use the Fat32 partition to back my MacBook up and the NTFS partition to share (read-only) files from my Windows PC.

When the drive was 100% NTFS, my MacBook could see all the files, but now I've repartitioned it, the MacBook can't see any files on the NTFS partition. Disk Info knows there's some files there as the free/used spaces are correct, but I can't see anything.

John

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Oct 13, 2006 4:17 AM

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Answer 1

ebarrera

Level 1

11 points

Oct 14, 2006 3:24 AM in response to John Francis

Well, this is normal. MacOS can only work with FAT32. The NTFS in not compatible with the Mac, but if you have a PC (you apparentle have because you want to share files) You should built a networks, you can share your NTFS folder/disks and let any Mac in your Network to access them.

Edgar

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Answer 2

John Francis Author

Level 1

25 points

Oct 14, 2006 3:33 AM in response to ebarrera

Not true, I believe Mac OSX Tiger should be able to read (only) NTFS volumes.

If you look at my original post ... "When the drive was 100% NTFS, my MacBook could see all the files".

I just can't see them now I've repartitioned the drive.

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Answer 3

mecklists

Level 4

1,795 points

Oct 14, 2006 9:20 AM in response to John Francis

You're correct. You should be able to read NTFS volumes when mounted.

Does Disk Utility see the NTFS volume as readable?

bill

1 GHz Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

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Answer 4

John Francis Author

Level 1

25 points

Oct 15, 2006 11:27 AM in response to John Francis

The drive seems to mount OK, and in the Get Info window I can see the correct capacity, used and available counts. The Ownership and Permissions says 'You can only read', but I can't see any of the files or folders on the drive.

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Answer 5

mecklists

Level 4

1,795 points

Oct 15, 2006 6:30 PM in response to John Francis

An experiment:

Open the Terminal application found in /Applications/Utilities and type ls -hal followed by a space. Then drag your drive into the middle of the Terminal window and drop it. This will fill in the path to your drive.

The "ls" command is a "list" command and will list files in the given path. The "-hal" options will add additional details about ownership, permissions, etc.

Does this command list any files on your drive?

bill

1 GHz Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

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Answer 6

John Francis Author

Level 1

25 points

Oct 15, 2006 10:55 PM in response to John Francis

This is all it shows. I might not have any files in the root folder, but there should be at least two sub-folders

MacBook:~ John$ ls -hal /Volumes/Gigastore/
total 0
drwxrwxrwt 6 root admin 204B Oct 16 06:52 ..
drwxrwxrwt 6 root admin 204B Oct 16 06:52 ..
MacBook:~ John$

John

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Answer 7

mecklists

Level 4

1,795 points

Oct 16, 2006 7:25 PM in response to John Francis

Ouch. Not even the UNIX system sees your files on this volume.

If you retype the command but stop at /Volumes, do you see something else beside the Gigastore drive and your local disks?

Try something like ls -hal /Volumes/.

bill

1 GHz Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

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Answer 8

John Francis Author

Level 1

25 points

Oct 17, 2006 5:44 AM in response to mecklists

MacBook:~ John$ ls -hal /Volumes
total 80
drwxrwxrwt 6 root admin 204B Oct 17 13:39 .
drwxrwxr-t 29 root admin 1K Oct 16 19:40 ..
-rwxrwxrwx 1 John John 82B Oct 15 17:19 ._IPOD
drwxrwxrwx 1 John John 32K Oct 15 19:24 FAT32
drwxr-xr-x 1 John John 0B Apr 22 2009 Gigastore
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1B Oct 16 19:40 Macintosh HD -> /
MacBook:~ John$

Funny that the ls list on the Gigastore showed two '..' entries rather than '.' and '..'.

I wonder if it's because I've partitioned this disk into two? It was working fine as one large NTFS partition. Maybe I'll try making the NTFS partition first then a second FAT32 partition.

John

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Answer 9

John Francis Author

Level 1

25 points

Oct 17, 2006 5:46 AM in response to John Francis

FAT32 is the FAT32 partition on the external disk.

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Answer 10

John Francis Author

Level 1

25 points

Oct 22, 2006 9:02 AM in response to John Francis

I've resolved this problem by repartitioning the disk with the NTFS partition in the first 100Gb and the FAT32 disk in the rest. The Mac sees the NTFS partition read-only and the Fat32 partition read-write now.

Thanks for all the help.
John

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