# Is NTFS still experimental?

## george_mercury

Hi folks,

I've just compiled 2.6.7 kernel; during configuration process I found something strange. NTFS write support is supposed to be experimental right? But then why was there no (EXPERIMENTAL) sign when enabling NTFS write support? So is therefore NTFS write support ready for (safe) use?

George

----------

## radonsg

as far as I know, still very unstable.

----------

## Braetene

its still unstable, it can screw up your ntfs permissions, enabling your whole hard drive kind of um...useless, i wouldnt recommend trying it on a hard drive you need to keep   :Very Happy: 

----------

## allucid

AFAIK the NTFS write support in the 2.6 kernel only supports saving to a file that already exists and it has to be the exact same filesize.

----------

## vonhelmet

Yes, as said above it can only overwrite existing files and they must be the same size.

This, of course, is next to useless.

Reading is rock solid though, so that's cool.

I imagine they'll keep working on NTFS writing, through reverse engineering and so on. MS might have a fit if they pull it off though... Mind you, they've got WinFS in the pipeline (though I believe it's been pulled from Longhorn - am I right?) so they can always just get everyone to upgrade to that and leave us unable to read MS disks once again...

----------

## radonsg

 *vonhelmet wrote:*   

> Yes, as said above it can only overwrite existing files and they must be the same size.
> 
> This, of course, is next to useless.
> 
> Reading is rock solid though, so that's cool.
> ...

 

Ye. Who knows that when WinFS is out, they might released the source code for NTFS. Keeps our finger cross.

----------

## vonhelmet

 *radonsg wrote:*   

>  *vonhelmet wrote:*   Yes, as said above it can only overwrite existing files and they must be the same size.
> 
> This, of course, is next to useless.
> 
> Reading is rock solid though, so that's cool.
> ...

 

I doubt it. Firstly WinFS builds heavily on NTFS. Secondly, MS are very hesitant to release the source to anything. The increasing use of NTFS hasn't prompted them to release the source code for FAT... We only have full read/write in FAT through reverse engineering.

----------

## radonsg

yes, quite true on the point. Mircosoft aren't like sun, sun recognise the fact that open source goin to change the way of doin business. So they gave it a thought on opening up. Microsoft wise ........  :Crying or Very sad: 

----------

## sdaffis

Isn't WinFS more of a meta-information searching layer on top of NTFS? Or have I got everything wrong?  :Smile: 

----------

## allucid

 *sdaffis wrote:*   

> Isn't WinFS more of a meta-information searching layer on top of NTFS? Or have I got everything wrong? 

 

That is correct. WinFS is planned to run on top of NTFS.

----------

## nx12

 *radonsg wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Ye. Who knows that when WinFS is out, they might released the source code for NTFS. Keeps our finger cross.

 

I don't see any use for NTFS source code. It's a crappy filesystem needing only a good fsck and a bunch of defragmentators installed. I use FAT32 or ext2 for exchange with windows. And it seems to be enough.

----------

## ewtrowbr

I seem to have jacked up an ntfs drive by mounting it rw. Lesson learned. Is there a fsck.ntfs program somewhere that I'm too dumb to find? I've emerged ntfstools, but it doesn't seem to be there.

erich

----------

## xlulux

expanding on this

if we ever do get ntfs source code, do you think there will be any linux based defraggers for ntfs partitions? i would trust that if i booted into gentoo then i defragged my windows partition from there it would be alot faster 

just my two cents

----------

## darklegion

Why not use CaptiveNTFS? :  http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/

It is said to be perfectlty stable,although I understand it is a bit of a hack and many linux people are against the use of wine and would prefer a cleaner solution.

----------

## nx12

Gonna try it. Though, afaik, LUFS is kinda dead atm. Anyway, if it works, it's great.

----------

## genstef

Captive currently does not work(it would if you would copy some files manually).

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> !!! Captive currently does not work !!!
> 
> It seems we cant install the old gnome-vfs-httpcaptive package, so we need to modify the captive package to work with the current gnome-vfs. I wont do it, so everyone is free to do it.

 

from last post:

https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32929

----------

