USBs that are configured as NTFS.

What works, and doesn't, for you. Be specific, and please include Puppy version.
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gcmartin

USBs that are configured as NTFS.

#1 Post by gcmartin »

My PUPs cannot see my USB stick which is formatted as NTFS compressed filesystem. My Windows, Apple and my TV can see, read, and write the drive's information. But, my PUPs cannot!
(I don't think I need to explain the benefit to why this filesystem technology exists...do I?)

In the past, even though I noticed this, I never approached the community for addressing assistance.

I am not sure whether this is a bug or if the bug is just that teh system is missing something.

Here my scenario
I fully recognize that when it comes to large files, FAT32 is not a good answer. I also fully recognize that WinXP et. al. do not understand ext2/ext3/ext4 without add on to the Windows systems. But they do understand, as does Puppy pre-formatted NTFS drives.

So, on my Puppy, I took a new 32GB USB and I deleted its FAT32 and exited GParted. Guess what. I lost the ability to address or recognize the USB. I rebooted thinking there was some mistake (bug) but to my surprise, NOTHING I could do with any on my several running PUP distros would "talk" to the empty USB!

So, I had to use MS to
  • recognize the drive and
  • format the drive
Guess what...now. Windows would recognized the NTFS compressed partition onthe USB, but, again, NONE of my PUPs would even acknowledge its presence.

All Windows acknowledged it and allowed me to add multimedia content to the USB in several folders I designed.

So, I took my newly build USB with its multimedia content to my new TV. Not only did it immediately recognize the compressed NTFS USB and the multimedia content, it played them. "Thanks You Android TV"

Question
Does anyone know what I can do gather information for this community to address this shortcoming?

If my Android TV can do it, then my thoughts are that my PUPs are smarter and should be able to, also.

(See my TV notes, here)

Thanks in advance for any understanding or assistance.

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rcrsn51
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Re: USBs that are configured as NTFS.

#2 Post by rcrsn51 »

gcmartin wrote:So, on my Puppy, I took a new 32GB USB and I deleted its FAT32 and exited GParted. Guess what. I lost the ability to address or recognize the USB. I rebooted thinking there was some mistake (bug) but to my surprise, NOTHING I could do with any on my several running PUP distros would "talk" to the empty USB!
Are you saying that you deleted the FAT32 partition but did NOT replace it with anything? It's hardly surprising that Puppy couldn't read it. Why did you not simply reformat the partition as NTFS?
So, I had to use MS to
  • recognize the drive and
  • format the drive
Guess what...now. Windows would recognized the NTFS compressed partition onthe USB, but, again, NONE of my PUPs would even acknowledge its presence.
Are you saying that you explicitly turned ON compression on the drive? Why not format it as regular uncompressed NTFS?

p310don
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#3 Post by p310don »

I haven't experienced this problem with NTFS formatted usb drives. It is a long time however since I've used it.

As a side note / idea, perhaps you could format the first 4 gig of a large drive in fat 32, and then the rest as ext2, and include an ext* driver for installing in windows in your fat32 partition... Just a thought, not sure how useful this approach would be.

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Flash
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#4 Post by Flash »

No Puppy has never had any problem seeing, mounting, reading from or writing to any NTFS partition I've tried to use. That includes an SD memory card I formatted NTFS just to see if it would work. I've never used a compressed NTFS filesystem.

I'm pretty sure your problem is caused by using a compressed NTFS filesystem. Why ask for trouble? If you don't need compression, don't use it.

By the way, Linux sees filesystems, not devices. If you wiped a device but didn't put a filesystem on it, Puppy won't see it.

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rcrsn51
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#5 Post by rcrsn51 »

As a test, I formatted an 80GB USB hard drive in XP as NTFS with NO compression. I then checked it in several Puppies. It was detected and usable.

I then reformatted it in XP and ENABLED compression. I checked it again in Puppy and it still worked fine.

According to the ntfs-3g documention, their driver has recognized NTFS compression since 2010.

gcmartin

I tried this on several PUPs

#6 Post by gcmartin »

My scenario was pretty accurate.

Yes, I have used FAT32/EXT2/EXT3/EXT4/NTFS and now Compressed NTFS on USBs over the years. This is the first problem of this kind I've run into. I shared in the scenario that I lost the ability to address the drive after partition deletion in GParted.

Yes I deleted the partition. And yes PUPPY(s) would not recognize it even after reboot. Yes, MS recognized, mounted, and allow format of the drive as NTFS.

Yes, my MS Windows LAN machines (plural) can see the media. And YES, my TV saw, mounted, and played the media files I had copied to it. The TV has no problems with any files/folders on the drive. It appears that my LG GoogleTV is an Android.

No, LH64, FATSlacko, and Precise would NOT mount it...even after formatting.

So, if there is some system data/tools that anyone would recommend, I will try to gather more information about this issue with this USB drive.

No, I have NOT tried this with any other USB device(s). But, I am curious of what should I do in either PUP to get more useful information that would yield an explanation.

Hope this provides more insights and understanding of "what to recommend I do", next, to gather useful info.

Here to help

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rcrsn51
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Re: I tried this on several PUPs

#7 Post by rcrsn51 »

gcmartin wrote:Yes I deleted the partition. And yes PUPPY(s) would not recognize it even after reboot.
Please clarify. Are you saying that Gparted could not detect the device any more? Would fdisk?

Now that it is reformatted by Windows, does Gparted detect it? Does fdisk?

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sunburnt
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#8 Post by sunburnt »

.
# Note:

My old Semperon PC saw my 1-GB USB NTFS HD just fine.

It quit working and I`m using an old crappy Celeron, it won`t see it.
But the Celeron`s problem may be the drive`s size, or that it`s NTFS.
It`s my only large USB drive and the only one that`s NTFS.

p310don
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#9 Post by p310don »

Gcmartin, did you use safe removal in windows on the flash drive?

I have seen something like this before back when using Ubuntu (dark old days). I thought my flash drive was stuffed, until I took it to work and it was seen by windows. All it took to fix it, was to use the windows "Safely Remove Hardware" tool and it continued to work under linux.

Worth a try.

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rcrsn51
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#10 Post by rcrsn51 »

As a test, I got a 32 GB Verbatim flash drive. Working in Slacko, I did the following:

1. I deleted the factory FAT32 partition.

2. I unplugged/replugged the drive. I checked in both fdisk and Gparted. The drive was still visible.

3. I took it to a Win7 machine. Windows detected the drive as unformatted and offered to format it. But the procedure failed with a "cannot format" error message.

4. I checked with XP, but it could not format the drive either.

5. I took it back to Slacko and put a new FAT32 partition on it.

6. I took it back to Windows and formatted it successfully as NTFS. Neither XP nor Win7 gave me the option of enabling compression.

7. I took it back to Puppy. The NTFS partition was visible and usable.

8. I repeated the whole procedure with a 1 GB drive and got identical results.

gcmartin

NTFS problem is NOT SOLVED, as, it has DISAPPEARED

#11 Post by gcmartin »

Thanks for all the reviews on the phenomenon I encountered. I had posted to other thread, as well, that I now (f@#king MAGIC) am getting LH64 to recognize the USB (NTFS compressed) without issues...same as MS and the TV.

I have no logical explanation to what happened. And from the assistance of the rest of you, the problem is NOT re-creatable with your USBs. Further, it seems the behavior, even when Microsoft is employed is inconsistent with what I experienced (To create the NTFS compressed I used an old Win2K system) that I was repairing to recognize, format and load the USB stick before discovery that I still could not recognize it in PUPs but capable on the TV in recognition and use.

I'm sorry that I did not know what to collect as evidence of this phenomenon. This was the reason of bringing this to the community for insights.

Now, I can see it, and as one other member is reporting, he cannot get a modern Microsoft version to exhibit expected behavior.

This maybe pointed to something that is inherit in USB vendor chipsets as there could be some mis-alignment in each's understanding, thus we see differing activity when each of us run our tests.

I really feel bad that I could NOT offer the community more insights or assistance on this phenomenon. But, as some are sharing the problems may not be a OS problem, but might be a vendor issue.

Until there is more definitive findings, I'm not sure ...

Here to help

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