exFAT not mounting drives and devices

English Hardware
1

This is a general conversation about file format systems that may or may not fully rise to the level of a “question”

Trying to sit on 3 fences at once, I am attempting to work toward openSUSE and away from Windows 7 while my wife is a devoted Apple worshipper.

I am getting the impression that NTFS is the only common ground that everybody seems willing to even tolerate.

A couple of months ago I did a complete hardware/software rebuild and launched into a dual-boot openSUSE + Windows 7 environment. OpenSUSE can mount and use NTFS gear, at least “comfortably” if not exactly “cheerfully” and I can accept that.

Microsoft will not recognize Linux and I can reluctantly accept that, too, although it is irritating and petty.

My wife and I need to share a large hard drive that archives the family photos, videos, etc, of a few hundred gigs. And a few of them exceed 4 gigs each, and that touched off a problem. (And since that 4GB, coincidentally, happens to be the size of a movie on a DVD, I am hoping that somebody has a good solution.)

The hard drive, which is currently formatted in NTFS and loaded with thousands of files, will allow her, Apple user, to read but not write. There are always those stupid (and I say that because here we are all single users on our own individual computers - but I digress … ) “permissions” that short-circuit basic file functions such as “write” and “delete” and only allow “read”.

Researching in the Apple dimension, everybody told her that FAT32 croaks at 4GB, so the simple solution is to use exFAT.
So she/I/we dutifully formatted some hard drives and flash drives to exFAT which seemed to make the twin evil empires of Apple and Microshaft happy, but, whoa-ho, now openSUSE simply “fails” to mount them.

So, my “question” is: What is the technique to make this menage-a-trios viable?
Or, can you tell me that it is not reasonably feasible so just shut up and go away?

Thank you! Harry

2

I think exFAT is IP encumbered. Apple probably bought a license

NTFS should be usable from Apple. I’d think it is a matter of setting permissions. Apple OS is more or less based on Unix so has there same permission structure as Linux

Maybe this helps looks like what I’d do in Linux

http://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorials/quick-tip-how-to-write-to-ntfs-drives-in-os-x-mavericks--cms-21434

Alsolooks like ext2 is supported I believe you may also find some Windows drivers for that. Definitely not out of the box

http://guides.macrumors.com/File_systems

3

It is a large story (filled partly with your personal background), and I tried to stick to the essentials.

. NTFS does not store ownership by user/group, nor the read/write execute permission.

. The Linux software that was made to handle NTFS as good as possible fakes the ownership and permissions to make existence on a Linux system possible. But it only fakes them. Part of this mechanism is that on mounting one has to configure which user/group should be shown and used as the fake owners. This is done using the mount statement (either explicit by options in the statement or implicilt by defining options in an /etc/fstab entry).

. I do not know anything about the Apple implementation, but if Apple only implements reading here (security?) then that is it. If Apple also implements writing, how to achieve that must be in the Apple documentation. It might be that some openSUSE user here knows how to do it, but an Apple forum should be a better place to ask.

4

On 2015-02-25, fohat <fohat@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
> Trying to sit on 3 fences at once, I am attempting to work toward
> openSUSE and away from Windows 7 while my wife is a devoted Apple
> worshipper.

At the risk of offending your wife, can I suggest the real stumbling block here is Apple? Apparently MacOS can
read & write to NTFS partitions but writing is not officially supported. I don’t use an Apple so cannot verify this
personally but you may find this link useful:

http://osxdaily.com/2013/10/02/enable-ntfs-write-support-mac-os-x/

Otherwise I suspect your best bet is asking at an Apple forum.

> Microsoft will not recognize Linux and I can reluctantly accept that,
> too, although it is irritating and petty.

I believe there are third-party applications that allow ext4 recognition: e.g. see

http://www.howtogeek.com/112888/3-ways-to-access-your-linux-partitions-from-windows/

Otherwise I suspect your best bet is asking at a Windows forum.

> Researching in the Apple dimension, everybody told her that FAT32 croaks
> at 4GB, so the simple solution is to use exFAT.
> So she/I/we dutifully formatted some hard drives and flash drives to
> exFAT which seemed to make the twin evil empires of Apple and Microshaft
> happy, but, whoa-ho, now openSUSE simply “fails” to mount them.

You sure? http://software.opensuse.org/package/fuse-exfat

> So, my “question” is: What is the technique to make this menage-a-trios viable?

Use protection :slight_smile: and by that I mean make sure you backup your data. A home-based dedicated NAS device might be a better
medium to store/backup your media data and this can be done in a way that be accessed by all your home devices.

> Or, can you tell me that it is not reasonably feasible so just shut up and go away?

The best solution is for your wife to continue using her fantastic Apple hardware, only just format the hard drive and
install an operating system not designed for children :).

5

Hi
I have an Apple Airport Extreme router in my junk draw (resurrected from being faulty), it has a USB port for printer/hdd (put a hub on an can run multiple devices). Maybe switch to apple format partition, it works in Linux OTB… think you have to buy a windows driver though?

Maybe get a router that supports a HDD being attached to share, or a small NAS?

6

It might be worth looking at Paragon software. Depending on the MacOS version, you could try Microsoft NTFS for Mac | Paragon Software for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, free; or Microsoft NTFS for Mac | Paragon Software for up to OS X 10.10 Yosemite , $20.

I have no Apple systems, but use Paragon’s ExtFS for Windows to read and write to ext4 partitions from Windows 7. It has worked without issues.

Regards,
Howard

7

exFAT used to work in 13.1, I can’t make it work in 13.2.
Maybe you need to install 13.1. :frowning:

8

https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/505534-opensuse-13-2-KDE-USB-3-0-port-not-working

My flash drive was preformed EXFAT. FAT32 supports up to 95 gig. If I format it in FAT32 and restore files from backup, it should mount and read/write. It’s a workaround until the bug is fixed.

NFTS= READ
FAT32= READ/WRITE
EXFAT= can’t mount

If opensuse NFTS write works, formatting it in NFTS might work as well.

9

I use a fat32 (32gig) partition as transfer partition between and mswin and opensuse. It’s easy to create and endlessly useful. :slight_smile:

10

And this was not a problem, for years, until we hit the limit that any single file cannot exceed 4GB.

With videos exceeding that size (and a DVD rip of 4.7GB, of course) FAT32 chokes.

11

If I use windows to download on a high speed connection to an NFTS flash drive, copy NFTS to FAT32. An OPENSUSE ISO will fail to copy, but < 4gb will copy. So, the better way would be too format the flash 64gb in NFTS. Copy NFTS to linux. Then delete the files using mswin? Can OPENSUSE 13.2 write in NFTS?

12

No but it can write to NTFS :stuck_out_tongue:

IF the NTFS file system has not be closed down properly it will only mount read only. You can only correct this on a windows machine.

13

Opensuse will write to NTFS. If you shut down on opensuse and something goes wrong, if won’t mount as read/write. Ok, I reformatted the flash drive 64gig as NTFS and restored files from backup. I’ll see if opensuse will delete files from NTFS without error. Thanks. Sorry for the typo in NTFS.

14

Removing a stick before all the files are safe cause the files system to be in an unknown state So read only is allowed. So always press the remove safely button and wait until told it is safe to remove any USB data device. Re inserting int Windows and removing correctly generally fixes things.

15

FWIW, the ‘ntfsfix’ utility can sometimes be used in these situations. It can fix some basic inconsistent states and reset the journal, but no substitute for the windows NTFS file-check utilities.

For more info

man ntfsfix
16

I reformatted the flash drive as NFTS and restored files from backup. I plugged it in and moved files to my main Hard Drive. It worked. :slight_smile: