# Activating NTFS partitions for r/w in linux and vice versa

## efernandez2

How do I mount two other partitions in my hard drive so that linux can read and write to it?  I also want to know if it works the other way (dumb question I know, but I'll take my chances)?

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## Kaste

Well you plain can't 

There is no reliable driver for write access to an NTFS partition. You can try your luck but i wouldn't. 

What do you mean the other way round? If you mean access Ext or Reiser partitions from Windows, Yes that's possible. I find ext more comfortable because there is an implementation as a filesystem service whereas Reiser I only found one that acts as a user program which is akward.

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## Gusar

Of course there are reliable ways of writing to ntfs. You can either use captive or ntfs-fuse. 

Captive uses the original windows dll so it's 100% compatible but is slow. I don't use it, so I don't know how to set it up.

ntfs-fuse works great for me, with the exception that somethimes I can't delete a file, but changing files, creating new files and most of the time even deleting works. You can install it by emergeing ntfsprogs with the fuse USE flag, then modprobe the fuse module and set up /etc/fstab as described here in the ntfsprogs documentation. It's perfectly safe, but if you're paranoid, go for captive.

For the other way around, if you use ext3, you can either use ext2fsd or ext2ifs. Both can write to ext3, but they don't update the journal, meaning they mount the partition as ext2. But I haven't encountered any problems yet.

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## Kaste

Well i didn't know about captive, I guess that's safe. I have made rather bad experience with Fuse and that old russian driver. 

I can recommend ext2ifs it's great and yeah unless your computer crashes you are perfectly safe without journalling. In case that happens run linux first and it is safe again.

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## Gentree

 *Quote:*   

> I can recommend ext2ifs it's great 

  yeah its great if you want to use ext2, a fast, non-journalling fs instead of your native windows ntfs.

However I never cease to be amazed at how happy ppl are to open thier safe , stable linux installations up to all the crap flying around in windowsland.

There was recently a whitehat "proof of concept" virus that could propagate on windows and linux within the limits of the linux user permissions.

Now what do you imagine the user permissions on your root partition are worth when it is accessible from a running windows OS ?!

Up until now there has been little point in writing a linux virus - which is of course perfectly possible - since there was little chance of it propagating.

The more ppl open up their dual-boot systems with this sort of madness the more interesting that prospect becomes.

Please do us all a favour and STOP using ext2ifs et al. on dual boot.

If you need a shared space use vfat or captive/ntfs not a native linux fs.

 :Cool: 

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