Friday, September 19, 2008

NTFS-3G 1.2918

Information on what's new in this version of NTFS-3G can be found at the NTFS-3G release page.

Changes for the Mac OS X specific components:
  • Bugfix: Inode numbers are now properly retained between mounts. use_ino had been disabled after a testing session a while back, and this change was inadvertently left in the code.

Download NTFS-3G 1.2918 [stable]
Download NTFS-3G 1.2918 [ublio] (patched for improved performance)

Packaging, patching, some OS X-related development and testing has been done by Catacombae Software (i.e. myself).

Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 1.7 or later installed.
This package has been tested with OS X 10.4.11/Intel and OS X 10.5.4/Intel.

Information on how to install and use NTFS-3G for Mac OS X can be found in the User Guide.

Known issues:
  • Files with filenames created in Windows containing international characters with accents, umlauts and similar dots and lines, or filenames with korean characters might seem unreadable in the Finder. This is because Finder apparently expects all filenames to appear in unicode decomposed form, while NTFS allows both composed and decomposed form filenames. This issue is hard to solve in a pretty way, but you should still be able to access these files when using the Terminal. For me, copying the affected files to a HFS+ drive using the command "cp" worked fine.

  • After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. I don't have a solution for this, but you can still choose your startup drive by:
    • Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).

    • Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.

    • Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)
    If you have any information on a pretty way of solving this issue, I'd love to hear about it.

Sources:
ntfs-3g 1.2918 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
fuse_wait.c
ntfs-3g_daemon.c

16 comments:

Albert said...

hi!

i want to know what (older) release don't have this issue:

"Files with filenames created in Windows containing international characters with accents, ..."

thanks

Erik said...

Albert:

All releases have had this issue.
You don't think I add new problems to newer releases, do you? ;)

Albert said...

well, i don't think you add a problem, but always this have a start point.
thanks for reply
:(

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately this software doesn't work "as advertised". I installed FUSE 1.7 and 3g 1.2918 on a Mac Pro, mid 2008 vintage, 10.5.4. When I try to format a partition NTFS in Disk Utility it fails with an underlying task error. My search for a way to format NTFS on Mac continues...

Erik said...

Anonymous, September 24, 2008 10:07 PM:

Well, it should work. Are you not at all intrested in trying to solve the issue you're having?

If you are, please mail me so we can investigate what goes wrong.

For starters I would attempt to format the disk using the command line utility diskutil, to check if it works better, and if not, to (possibly) get more verbose error messages.

Tim Danaher said...

Hi, Erik --

I installed MacFUSE & NTFS-3g, and tried to erase a disk (using Disk Utility.app)as NTFS and as MacOS -- both times, the 'barber's pole' stuck at 'creating partition map'.

Uninstall NTFS-3g -- Disk Utility works as it should (but No NTFS, natch).

MacOS X 10.5.2

Any ideas?

Tim Danaher said...

I'm getting the same 'underlying Error' message when I try to reformat the Boot Camp FAT 32 partition to NTFS..

I'd be more than happy to e-mail you to sort out the problem.

Unknown said...

erik, can I supply option parameters to ntfs-3g for automount? I'm trying to get a workaround via using iconv module, but I can't figure out how to apply the options to the mounting process.

Anonymous said...

I have lost data.

OS 10.5.5 (Intel)
MacFUSE 1.7.1
NTFS-3G 1.2918-catacombae-stable

I began moving a large file from an internal HFS+ volume to an NTFS volume on a USB disk. I renamed the destination folder in the Finder. I made a typo, so I renamed the destination folder again. The Finder complained that the new name was too long (it was the same length as the old name). I renamed the folder again, using the same name, and it worked. Then I moved another file to the folder. When the first file finished moving, it disappeared. The second file is OK.

Tim Danaher said...

Looks like Erik's on holiday...

I've e-mailed him to offer to help, but no reply.

Erik said...

Tim Danaher:

I don't get paid for this, you know... so please have patience. (:
I'm occupied with other things right now, but I'll mail you back when I have some spare time and then we can start investigating.

Erik said...

Touko:

You can edit the file /System/Library/Filesystems/ntfs-3g.fs/ntfs-3g.util to your liking.
It's a huge script file, but I have a lot of comments in there.
Search for the function "Mount ()" and add your mount options wherever it best suits you.

Erik said...

Anonymous, September 30, 2008 3:57 PM:

These things are best reported to www.ntfs-3g.org, and not to me. It helps if you can reproduce the data loss for testing purposes.

James (Jeffrey) T Wang said...

was having all sorts of drama getting a device to mnt with the right name, there was another redundt pt that had the name i wanted so it kept xallng itself "mt pt name -1" finally worked thatt out reinstalled everythin and now it's using ntfs 3g and the right name is showing on the desktop but the mtn point under /Volumes is now "Untitled"!! I unmounted, deleted this mt point, rebooted and now it's no longer using the devuce name for the mt point name, it still looks fine on the desktop but I want it to look right in /Volumes too! any ideas?? jed

James (Jeffrey) T Wang said...

Anyone? See my post above...

Erik said...

Jed:

I wasn't sure if that was a serious post, given the almost unreadable language you were using. I was about to delete it as spam, but never got to it.

1. Please try not to write your questions in MSN/irc-ified abbreviations, and use proper written english.
2. This is the comments section for an old version of NTFS-3G. You should post your questions under the newest blog post, which at the moment is 1.5012. Otherwise we can't know if you're using the latest version... (bugs will only be addressed in the latest version... old versions are always completely unsupported)