From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Wed Nov 29 21:33:01 2017 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AB731DEA6C8 for ; Wed, 29 Nov 2017 21:33:01 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rfg@tristatelogic.com) Received: from outgoing.tristatelogic.com (segfault.tristatelogic.com [69.62.255.118]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 926BF65A82 for ; Wed, 29 Nov 2017 21:33:00 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rfg@tristatelogic.com) Received: from segfault-nmh-helo.tristatelogic.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by segfault.tristatelogic.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id D88A23AEFC for ; Wed, 29 Nov 2017 13:32:53 -0800 (PST) From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" to: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Mount NTFS from "Live" system? In-Reply-To: <37725.1511844646@segfault.tristatelogic.com> Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2017 13:32:53 -0800 Message-ID: <47545.1511991173@segfault.tristatelogic.com> X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.25 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2017 21:33:01 -0000 In message <37725.1511844646@segfault.tristatelogic.com>, I wrote: >... >I just now installed 11.1-RELEASE on a USB stick and booted from >that into the "Live" mode, and I was hoping to use that to try >my test(s) again on the (possibly failing) harddrive, but it >seems like maybe in Live mode there is no way to mount NTFS >filesystems. Bummer. :-( > >Is that actually true? Is there an easy/fast way around it? > > >P.S. Should I maybe file a PR, suggesting the enhancement that >the "ntfs-3g" tool be included in the Live mode image? (It >really does seems a pity if it ain't in there.) It was suggested to me that I ought to post a follow-up / post mortem regarding this issue, just to close out the topic. Bottom line: After much fiddling and gnashing of teeth, it turned out that I had a failed/failing harddrive. The specific one that failed... in a rather odd way... was a 3-year-old out-of-warranty WD "blue" 320GB 2.5" laptop drive that I'd been using on occasion as a scratch drive. (I've got these clever things called Kinwin KF-255-BK "trayless" hot-swap bays on the front on my systems that let me easily insert or remove a 2.5" or 3.5" drive any time I want.) Anyway, the drive was failing, but I didn't know it because it just started to get real real slow. The fact that it was failing was ultimately confirmed by attempting to run the built-in "long" form firmware diagnostics. That should have taken only about 1 hour to run. I left it running overnight, and it -never- finished. The drive is now in my e-waste pile. I have -never- had any WD "black" drive fail on me, but I don't believe that I'll be buying any more of the "blue" ones. (The fact that this one failed is rather inexplicable, because even though it was 3 years old, it had less than 1,000 power-on hours on it, and less than 200 power-ups.) In this case, having a FreeBSD "live" system with support for NTFS may perhaps not have gotten me to the ultimate resolution of the problem any faster, but I still do think that it would be a Good Idea to include the ntfs-3g thingy in the normative release images... because you never know when this might be a great help. Then again, perhaps if I had just started with a mini/memstick image then I could perhaps have loaded ntfs-3g, over the net, into the "live" system. Would that have worked? I dunno. I didn't try it. Does anybody know? Regards, rfg