Mac OS X on Windows NTFS

Its a regular practise to run Mac OS X on a Bootcamp Windows. But, the real cloghead arrives when the users running Mac OS X wishes to update or modify files and documents in the windows partition. The problem lies in NTFS File System on which you can natively read the drive but not write on to it.

An implementation of MacFUSE by Amit Singh, a Google employee, makes it possible to use any FUSE(File System in USErspace) file systems in Mac. The most advantageous FUSE tool to be named here is the NTFS-3G Read/Write Driver, which enables the system to load NTFS with readand write capability. Isnt it an amazing news for dual booting with Mac OS X and Windows XP or Vista.

A little digging on the internet led me to trace out how users with binary version of MacFUSE and ntfs-3g are ready and up to install. Following the below said instructions would help in using MacFUSE and NTFS-3G. It requires a little bit of administration skills because you will need torun commands in the Terminal.

As it goes with every installation, the standard instruction would be:  Backup your data and Try it at your own risk.

• Download and Install MacFuse 0.1.7 DMG

• Download and Install NTFS-3G 20070116 DMG

• Open the Disk Utility (In Finder -> Application -> Utility folder) and press Umount button on the NTFS volume

• Now, right click on the volume and select “Information”, search for “Disk Identifier” (i.e. disk0s2). Jot it Down.

• Start Terminal and run the the following commands in italic:
• Create symlink for mount_fusefs: sudo ln -s /System/Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/mount_fusefs /usr/bin/mount_fusefs
• Create a new directory: mkdir /Volumes/Windows
• Mount the NTFS volume: sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk0s2 /Volumes/”Windows” -o ping_diskarb,volname=”Windows”

Windows volume should be visible by now as it is mounted and should be displayed on your desktop.Now try to read and write files in the NTFS volume. Have fun and hope you find it useful.

Do comment if you have any useful tip!!!