NTFS on Mac OSX

[KIT786]

Got myself a new iMac, but it doesn't seem to want to mount my external NTFS HDD. I know OSX can't write to NTFS drives, but they are supposed to be able to read NTFS drives by default.

Anyway I've tried installing Macfuse by doesn't seem to be making a difference, and the thing is the drive works fine on my old mac. Anyone know how to fix this issue?

Don't know if it this will help, but when i setup the new iMac i did use the migration assistant to transfer all files, settings, apps, etc..

[Chief H]

It's been a while since I did any ntfs shenanigans on my mac, but from my simple understandings you need to also install the drivers for an NTFS FUSE for Macfuse to work with in order to get it running. I used the ones on http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/

[Escape-To-88]

Hmm this seems odd my 27" iMac had read all of my NTFS drivers without any additional software or drivers. How is your external NTFS driver partitioned? What Mac are you running? What OSX?

[KIT786]

I did try that Chief H, but no luck.

I'm running Snow Leopard, on the latest 27" model (the ones that came out a few months back). Not quite sure how the drive has been partitioned as it was done a while back, but it worked fine on my old mac and still does

[Taka]

Silly question but have you tried different USB ports? Or through a hub? Is it a desktop external drive with its own power supply or a portable one where you have to plug it into two USB ports?

Do you have a USB memory stick you can format to NTFS to test perhaps? If you have a Windows disc kicking about, I would also try installing Windows using the built in Boot Camp and then see if OSX can view the Windows partition.

Finally, you can try reinstalling OSX again, basically repairing th existing installation. Or better yet, do a clean install if you can afford the time.

[Cornflakes]

Hmm this seems odd my 27" iMac had read all of my NTFS drivers without any additional software or drivers.

This was supported in earlier builds, but i think it was disabled later on. However it is still present, you just need enable it. Just google for "Enable native NTFS Read/Write in Snow Leopard". Not sure if lion supports it. But the write function is buggy...
Time to move to exfat for USB drives.

[KIT786]

Tried different usb ports and someone else's usb stick but it still can't see either of the drives. The drive was originally an internal drive but I got an enclosure and put it in there. It has its own power, and I've swapped out the drive with a FAT drive to make sure nothing is wrong with the enclousre, but the FAT drive works fine.

Will give the bootcamp option a try on the weekend (does it support XP?), otherwise will call up apple and see what they say.

[smouty]

If it's just a one time transfer, do you have the windows machine still available as you can share it on the network and copy the files over.
Once this is completed you can re-format the drive on the Mac.

[Taka]

Bootcamp should support XP under OSX Snow Leopard, though I believe XP support is being phased out with OSX Lion?

[Escape-To-88]

This was supported in earlier builds, but i think it was disabled later on

I'm using the same OSX as the original poster-the latest Snow Leopard build, and a mate of mine is on his also, and neither he or I had to install anything. I'm running the slightly older i7, late 2010 I believe. Could it be something to with the Thunderbolt connection that these new Macs have?

I was just watching HD MKV's off my external drive on VLC player under OSX and regular use mem sticks etc. formatted to NTFS, so there is obviously a way to get it working, guess it's just finding the trick! I can also confirm one of my externals in an enclosure runs fine, so as you've already diagnosed it's not an enclosure issue.

Might be worth a reinstall as someone else suggested above.

Yup bootcamp supports XP.

[KIT786]

I decided to do a reinstall last night and that made no difference.

Got back from work today a lot earlier than expected so decided to try bootcamp. Got a copy of vista lying around and so decided to install that. Bootcamp actually formatted the drive to FAT but vista needs to install to NTFS so reformatted to NTFS and installed it without a problem, and it seems to be running fine (including being able to see the mac drive in windows). So I restart into OSX and it can't see the bootcamp drive. It wll appear in Disk Utility, but SL refuses to mount it, so I can't do anything with it.

TBH I could do without having to use ntfs drives, but probably at least 75% of people I know have windows machines and so if i want anything from them, likelihood is that their usb drive will be ntfs. Gotta agree with Cornflakes, exFat is the way forward!

[smouty]

Gotta agree with Cornflakes, exFat is the way forward!

Maybe for compatibility but not as a robust file system.

[Escape-To-88]

Maybe for compatibility but not as a robust file system.

Agreed

[KIT786]

Made some progress today. Basically using terminal I was able to mount both my ntfs drive and bootcamp. However when I eject/unmount them I can't mount them again without doing it manually through Terminal. This is what i used:

# cd /Volumes
# mkdir /Volumes/Bootcamp
# sudo mount_ntfs /dev/disk0s3 /Volumes/Bootcamp

and the same with my ntfs drive (but substituting drive location and name obviously). I assume this means that the system should normally run those commands automatically when a drive is inserted, but isn't for some reason. The question now is why isn't it doing it by itself and how to force it to do it?

Don't know much about exFAT, and so yeah was talking about compatibility wise.

[Taka]

Hmmm, I decided to try NTFS drives on my 2011 MacBook Pro and mine won't mount NTFS either :S