On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 20:14:14 +0100, René Kjellerup wrote:

Through the 2.4.x kernel series, NTFS support is weak at best; a
read/write option exists, but is considered "experimental" or "dangerous"
or some such term. Bottom line: It's unreliable and should only be used if
you're absolutely desperate and are willing to risk all the data on the
NTFS partition.

The 2.6.x kernel has replaced the earlier read/write support with a new
system that enables programs to modify data within an existing file, but
not to create new files or change the size of existing files. In theory,
this should be more reliable, although it's also more limited in its
capabilities. I have yet to see any reports of how well it works, and I've
not tried it myself.

Another option is to use Captive
(http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/), which is a special
"wrapper" driver that enables the Linux kernel to use the real Windows
NTFS driver module. I haven't tried this myself, or seen any reports from
users on Usenet, but it looks promising, based on what's on the Web site.

--
Rod Smith, rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux, FreeBSD, and networking