NTFS and Linux

[UBankIT]

I was going to try and install linux on my box here at work but i just remembered I have w2k and winxp pro installed and that the drive is a ntfs partition. Will linux have a problem reading this or no? Also how can i adjust the size of my partition?

Thanks for everyone's help

 

[ifincham]

Hi,

You can certainly read a ntfs partition from linux but there is, as yet, no reliable write support. You'd just mount the partition as type 'ntfs' somewhere in the linux filesystem :

# mount /dev/hda1 -t ntfs -o ro /mnt/wherever

The easiest resizer of ntfs partitions is most probably partition magic -->

http://www.powerquest.com/partitionmagic/

Hope this helps

 

[UBankIT]

Ok so I can read it but is there a way that I can install on this partition or no?

 

[ifincham]

Hi,

No - you can't install directly on a ntfs partition due to the lack to r/w support. It is possible (but not recommended) to install onto a fat32 partition, however.

What you would ordinarily do is resize downwards the ntfs partition to free up some space on the drive. You then use that free space to create one or more ext2 (linux) partitions and a small linux swap partition. As long as you have free space you can leave it to the linux installer to create the partitions if you don't like the idea of doing it beforehand.

This may help -->

http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/Linux+WinNT.html

Regards