Tabs

February 1, 2012

Enable writing to NTFS hard drives on Mac OS X

Windows uses the NTFS hard drive format for its hard drives. Mac OS X can read files on NTFS hard drives, but it can't write files to them, which is a glaring omission. Attempting to drag a file into an NTFS drive in Mac OS X will only result in your mouse cursor turning into an error sign. Since most Hackintoshes dual-boot Windows and Mac OS X, being unable to share files between hard drives can lead to problems with file management. Fortunately, you can enable NTFS writing on Mac OS X with relatively little trouble. Read past the break for more.

LAST UPDATED: July 28, 2012 (Mountain Lion support)

NTFS-3G (Free)
NTFS-3G is a Mac app that enables reading & writing to NTFS drives on Mac OS X Snow Leopard for free. You need to install the Macfuse driver as well, for NTFS-3G to work. Once you've installed both NTFS-3G and Macfuse, you'll be able to write files to your Windows hard drives flawlessly.

Unfortunately, development of the Macfuse driver has stopped, so there will likely never be any official support for newer versions of Mac OS X. In Mac OS X Lion and Mountain Lion, you'll instead have to install the OSXFuse driver, a replacement for Macfuse.

However, even with OSXFuse, NTFS-3G does not work fully in Lion and Mountain Lion; you will still get mounting errors every time your computer boots. To fix these errors, you'll have to install this patch for NTFS-3G.

These Lion compatibility issues affect all free NTFS enablers, including apps like iNTFS and NTFS Mounter.

Paragon NTFS ($20)
NTFS-3G normally works pretty well on Lion and Mountain Lion with OSXFuse, but there are paid options as well. Paragon NTFS is a paid app that enables writing to NTFS drives on Mac OS X Lion and Mountain Lion.

This app and Tuxera NTFS claim to offer better reading/writing performance than the standard NTFS-3G + Macfuse/OSXFuse setup, though I haven't verified this myself. Tuxera costs $32 and essentially does the same thing as Paragon NTFS, which is why I recommend Paragon's app instead.

Ending Notes
Though both NTFS-3G and Paragon NTFS work flawlessly for dragging and dropping files into your Windows hard drives from Finder, they're not perfect solutions. Your Windows hard drives have to be remounted every time you reboot, so they're not always available the moment Mac OS X starts up; you have to wait for Disk Utility to mount them. This can lead to issues with apps that try to access those drives at startup, e.g. Dropbox.

SEE ALSO: How to access your HFS+ hard drives on Windows

23 comments:

  2. I'm having trouble getting this to work mountain lion. I keep getting this message:
    NTFS-3G could not mount /dev/disk1s1
    at /Volumes/Expansion Drive because the following problem occurred:

    dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/lib/libfuse.2.dylib
    Referenced from: /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g
    Reason: image not found

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. I had the same problem.

      You have to uninstall the NTFS-3g and follow these steps (order is important!):

      http://jordi-montana.blogspot.com.es/2013/05/how-to-write-to-ntfs-volume-windows.html

      Delete

  3. I keep getting that same message, how can this be fixed?

    ReplyDelete

  4. the URL works great for me!!

    ReplyDelete

  5. same no fix yet I guess

    ReplyDelete

  6. I Use NTFS Free from sourceforge and works fone on montain lion.

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/ntfsfree/?source=directory

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Thank you for this link. I just installed it (NTFS free) rebooted, and it works perfectly.

      Delete

    2. I just installed it and it DID NOT work. I have a new ML 10.8.3 system. NTFS-Free will install but after that it does nothing. Needless to say, of course, IT IS UNACCEPTABLE that Apple does not include free can not fail ability to use NTFS USB drives, AN INDUSTRY STANDARD!!!!! and the ENTIRE Apple comunity especially ALL the Apple Engineers should be insisting that they do and refusing to buy any more Apples until they do.

      Delete

    3. May be you can try this:

      It worked for me:

      http://jordi-montana.blogspot.com.es/2013/05/how-to-write-to-ntfs-volume-windows.html

      Delete

  7. I know this will be a bit late bu in response to the second comment see here:
    https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/issues/15

    I was getting the same error as the second anonymous poster. I tried what the response was to the original post and it fixed my problem.

    ReplyDelete

  8. also received that error.. so what i did was mounted it via command prompt.

    create 1st /Volumes/HD-PXTU2 realpath, if not..

    $ mount -t NTFS /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/
    mount: realpath /Volumes/HD-PXTU2: No such file or directory

    after you created the realpath and mounted it, you can df

    $ df
    /dev/disk1s1 1952250864 1859505072 92745792 96% /Volumes/

    Now I can list the files inside the NTFS disk, it will now show up in Disk Utility (enabled) and shows up Finder Devices..

    But i still cannot write to it.. trying to manually update the file system to read-write (rw)

    $ mount
    /dev/disk1s1 on /Volumes/HD-PXTU2 (ntfs, local, nodev, nosuid, read-only, noowners, mounted by )

    ReplyDelete

  9. Tuxera-NTFS-for-Mac you can use this app on mac lion or mountain lion .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Sorry, that is NOT a free item. We need a FREE item that will do it and we need to insist that Apple provide one. There is NO EXCUSE in this day and age for Apple not to include native support for NTFS read and write. NO EXCUSE except of course greed which they are full of.

      Delete

  10. Just got the same error that others reported above:

    dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/lib/libfuse.2.dylib
    Referenced from: /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g
    Reason: image not found

    To fix this reinstall OSXFuse and check the "install MacFuse compatability" layer option. Then unplug and replug your hard drive.

    ReplyDelete

  11. After searching on the web for numerous days and getting nowhere, found this link. Worked as a charm and it was straight forward!!

    Thanks for the links mate!

    Cheers,
    Hit

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. What link?????? There is no link in this reply?????

      Delete

    2. He means this article on Macbreaker.

      Delete

  13. Im currently running XP and would like to partition my 1 NTFS hard drive to the file system of Mac (HFS) but im not sure what programs do it well. I want to run OSX tiger on it. What is a good program to use for partitioning hard drive for a XP & MAC environment?

    ReplyDelete

  14. Great!!
    The only free working solution
    Thanks mate

    ReplyDelete

  15. I'm trying to get some files from my harddrive but i cant because the iomega said YOU CAN ONLY READ… I had installed macfuse, ntfs3g and fuse for osx please help me!!

    ReplyDelete

  16. I have a combination:
    NTFS-3G (http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24481/ntfs-3g)
    Fuse for OS X (http://osxfuse.github.com/)
    Fuse wait (http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Utilities/Fuse-Wait.shtml)

    ,and everything works, without any problems, on Lion and now on latest Mountain Lion (10.8.3)

    ReplyDelete

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