how to use ntfs external hdd in linux

I just got a acer aspire one 8.9" laptop and it comes with linux linpus installed. I have an external 120gb harddrive i'd like to use on it but it is ntfs and when i plug into linux it says it can't mount. Any way i can mount and use it on the laptop. I want to keep as ntfs though.

 

First thing to do is find out if you have ntfs-3g installed. If it's not installed yet, install it.

On second thought, I doubt Acer would give you a preloaded linux without ntfs support. Could you post exactly what error message you get when you try to mount it?

 

First, make sure you are running as root. You can try

Code:

su

and enter your root password. If that is disabled, try

Code:

sudo -s

and enter your user's password.

Then run

Code:

fdisk -l

to list your partitions. You'll see your external hard drive's NTFS partition listed there. Run

Code:

mkdir /win

to create a directory to mount to. Run

Code:

mount [windows device] /win

to mount the device to that directory. Tell us the error message when you try to do that. If the NTFS partition doesn't show up in fdisk, then there is a USB connection problem.

 

the exact error i get is - unable to mount western digital (unknown file system "ntfs"

 

Looks like Linpus is Fedora-based. This may work:

Run as root:

Code:

yum install ntfs-3g

Then retry the steps I posted earlier.

 

thank you. I got that ntfs-3g installed and it opened up fine with out needing to do other steps