NTFS

NTFS (New Technology File System) is Article description::a proprietary disk by Microsoft for Windows and Windows-based operating systems.

There are two primary methods to achieve NTFS support when using Linux. Linux kernel 5.15 provides the new driver NTFSv3 with full support of NTFS filesystem including compression capabilities. There is also a filesystem driver called NTFS-3G - a slow but more stable and time-tested solution.

Kernel
Before Linux kernel 5.15, the mainlined old NTFS kernel driver had very limited functional support for NTFS. The kernel configuration information defines support as "partial, but safe". The old driver could overwrite existing files but is not capable of file or directory creation, deletion, or renaming. As of Linux 5.15 the old NTFS code was replaced by new Paragon's in-kernel NTFS driver named "NTFSv3". This driver is more fully featured and supports full read/write and compression capabilities.

Most NTFS users will want to enable the for systems running pre-5.15 kernels.

Native support
On Linux 5.15 and later following kernel options must be enabled for new NTFSv3 driver:

NTFS-3G (FUSE implementation)
The following kernel options must be enabled for NTFS read/write capabilities over FUSE in Linux before 5.15:

The package is also required (see the  below).

NTFS-3G
Because NTFS-3G is a FUSE-based filesystem, it requires user space utilities. It is currently the only FUSE-based implementation available in the main Gentoo repository. Make sure the  USE flag is enabled, otherwise there may be a "read only filesystem" error.

After reviewing and making adjustments as necessary, install the FUSE user space tools. This will enable the manipulation of NTFS filesystems:

Creation
To create an NTFS filesystem on the partition (needs   USE flag):

Please replace with the actual partition you want to format.

Mount
There are several ways to mount a NTFS filesystem:


 * - Manual mounting.
 * - Automatic mount at boot time.
 * - Automatic mount at demand.
 * - Automatic mount on access.

Native support
Using the new native driver NTFS3 (kernel 5.15):

FUSE (NTFS-3G)
Using the read/write capable driver provided by the ntfs3g package:

Force mount NTFS partition after Windows was hibernated
NTFS file systems controlled by Windows may be hibernated instead of cleanly shutdown in order to save on system start times. When this occurs it will not be possible to mount the NTFS partition unless the file is removed. The following command can be used to force-mount a hibernated partition, which will result in the hiberfile being removed; all data in the file will be lost. Windows will have to perform a clean boot in order to resume operation:

On the Windows system, in order to prevent unclean shutdowns from Windows it is possible to run from an Administrator command prompt. This will disable hibernation which will most likely increase boot times when booting Windows, but has the benefit of cleanly unmounting the drive.

ntfsfix
Occasionally it is necessary to fix an NTFS formatted partition from a Linux system. is the tool for the job:

External resources

 * NTFS at Microsoft's TechNet