How can you get an external NTFS HD to work? (Read Only)

[LogicalFool]

How can you get an external NTFS HD to work? (Read Only).

I have a 500GB Seagate external drive and I have all kinds of movies on it. How can I get LinuxMCE to read it?

[Gar40]

switch into Kubuntu mode and try the following in a terminal.

sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb?  ? being the drive number specific to your external drive.

I'm not entirely aware of your specific set up but if your dual booting with an MS os you can also boot it up twice and that should do it as well.  1 other possibility a likely one is that it's set to root access only  you change that by selecting the drives properties the clicking the permissions tab and change the permissions to user level access make sure you check the include sub folders option when you do this as well .

Hope that helps  ...

[colinjones]

With LMCE you should not try to mount drives manually (except perhaps just to check that it is possible) - this will screw up whether LMCE can actually use it.

Have you tried just plugging it in (presume it is USB or Firewire?)

If LMCE can use it, it will autodetect it and mount it on its own in the special way it needs to be able to use it. If you have already mounted it manually, don't forget to umount it first.

I don't know if LMCE can use an NTFS drive, but I'm guessing that as long as the OS can handle the file system (and I believe that 0710 can, even in read/write mode) then it shouldn't make any difference. The pnp is triggered off the fact that it is a new USB device arriving, and it should determine the file system type on its own and mount it like any other.

Others will chime in here if I am mistaken. Be conscious that if it does autodetect it and mount it correctly, you need to be ready to answer a few questions correctly.  Is media the only thing on this drive? Are you prepared to modify the folder sctructure to comply with LMCE's preference?

It will ask you if you want to use the LMCE structure - if possible, say yes. It will create in the root public-data-audio/documents/pictures/videos, and the same under user_1 and user_2.

It will ask if it can use this storage to store TV and other stuff automatically - you probably want to say No to this unless you want it as a possible destination for rips and TV from the LMCE itself

Once it has added the drive - leave it for a while (few minutes at least), then confirm the folders are there and use either the KDE desktop or another PC to move all your media under the appropriate folders it created. After a while it will discover that media and add it to your library, or you can use the admin site to force it immediately.

If you have lots of other (non-media) files on the drive, it is highly recommended that you allow it to create this folder structure and relocate your media so that it doesn't have to keep track of many irrelevant files.

If there are only media files (or mainly) and you can't use the LMCE structure for some reason, you can choose not to, but you may find this inconvenient as the library doesn't present the media to you in the consolidated view as well (I may be wrong on this point, but I had to search for media when I did this)

HTH

[Hagen]

I don't know if LMCE can use an NTFS drive, but I'm guessing that as long as the OS can handle the file system (and I believe that 0710 can, even in read/write mode) then it shouldn't make any difference. The pnp is triggered off the fact that it is a new USB device arriving, and it should determine the file system type on its own and mount it like any other.

LMCE 0710 should be able to use the NTFS disc, until then 0704 can read from NTFS, but not write to it, therefore you can not use the external disk with a 0704 install