I don't know if anyone on here can help with this but it's annoying me. I wanted to put XBMC Live on my HTPC because it struggled to run 1080p h264 videos in windows 7... So I install it and it forcibly installs GRUB which naturally detects windows 7 and adds a boot entry but screws up windows 7 anyway so it can't boot correctly (never ever installed a linux distro without it breaking windows) so then I figured to hell with it and wiped my hard drive and put Ubuntu on for when I need an OS and XBMC Live for when I just want media features...

The problem is ubuntu appears to be useless when it comes to mounting my external Western Digital Hard Drive. It's NTFS file format and has everything I want to copy onto this pc on it but ubuntu refuses to mount it, throwing up a lengthy and cryptic failed to read last sector error. Does anybody know how to solve this? I've run integrity checks etc on the disk to make sure it's ok and windows xp & 7 are happy with it.

I can't help but feel I've just wasted a lot of time installing Linux as yet again it's unfit for the purpose I want it for and I have to jump through hoops to get it running.

Thanks, I know they have... I have been searching for solutions but thus far none of them have been helpful.

You're missing ntfs-3g.

Ubuntu also has a very comprehensive wiki.

Remember that you also have to look under the sofa.

You need to install NTFS support. Open up the Software Center in Ubuntu and search for "ntfs-config". Install that and you should then be able to mount and access NTFS drives properly.

EDIT: and of course someone else replies with this while I'm writing it. :D

Thanks I will try that after de-fragmenting the drive (it shouldn't need it but I'll do it anyhow to be on the safe side.) Think I read about that drive somewhere but I thought they'd have incorporated it by now (running the latest distro... downloaded today)

TheJoe I've followed those steps already and tried getting it going via terminal but it's basically the same thing that it does when I right click & click mount anyhow. EDIT: but I somehow missed the driver >_< stupid me. I'll give that a go in 10 mins or so.

Another option is to give Windows 7 another chance and look into what's causing the issue. Under the right circumstances h264 video is hardware accelerated on Windows 7, but for that you need the proper video card drivers plus a program capable of tapping into them. If either of these is untrue it's done on the CPU and thus you get (comparatively) horrible performance.

It's an early Acer Aspire Revo with a 1.6ghz dual core & a geforce 9400? 256mb chip... it's not got a lot of muscle. I've applied every optimization I can think of to get it running smooth on 7 including upping the priority, disabling all irrelevant background services etc but I like XBMC and the processor is a bit of a bottleneck. I do also use WMP Classic with GPU Acceleration which performs better but there's still choppiness and I've been unable to work out why as neither the cpu, gpu or ram are 100% at the time. It ran perfect on windows xp but that was a bit iffy as I had to insert some drivers etc into a custom windows xp installation cd just to get it running and I had trouble with the optical port & HDMI audio out on xp.

Update: So after a lot of cocking around and editing files etc.... the hard drive still won't mount after trying every method I could find. This is why I don't get people who rave about Linux, you have to do so much to get something that should be simple working. I don't want to spend 90% of my time in terminal trying to get it working, I should be able to just plug it in. Using Linux is like going back 15 years. >_<

Thanks for the help guys but after all that I guess I'm going back to windows because it works.

You're using a proprietary filesystem controlled by a known monopolist and AFAIK MS hasn't released any of the specs for whatever version of NTFS they use for Windows 7.

How exactly is this Linux's fault?

Things don't "just work" in Windows generally unless you're doing only basic tasks. I personally find that there are times when Windows flat out won't do something that other OSes can do because MS didn't feel like including the functionality or wanted to be paid extra for it.

It's pretty clear that you haven't spent any time learning how to use the system if you're dropping to the command line that often. In practice I barely end up at the command line any more often in Linux than in Windows. Windows itself still has a command line primarily because there are tasks which cannot be accomplished without it. Good luck partitioning a flashdrive without a 3rd party utility or diskpart.

I was dropping to the command line because the automated aspect wasn't working and because otherwise it's constantly asking for my password and it's a pain to edit system files outside of terminal. Yes I have spent time with Linux over the years and it's still not something you can just install and use like windows is.

At the end of the day there are issues with Linux that have never taken priority.... working alongside windows is one of them and never once have I installed Linux without Grub breaking my install (I had no options not to install grub) and has been an arse to set up for a hell of a long time. Yes Microsoft have the same 'don't give a damn' policy but they have commercial interests and their bootloader can at least boot Linux without breaking it. As for blaming the filesystem.... it's funny how it can read an internal Windows 7 NTFS partition without difficulty & the external drive was formatted with XP.

Cut off the trolling rant. You think yourself smart? Why don't you format a drive with JFS or XFS and trying to mount it in Windows? Guess what it is impossible! Oh shit Windows is a terrible OS!! It can not even mount great open and free filesytems!

And while you can not use free filesystems in Windows i can happily use proprietary closed-source filesystem of MS in Linux for years. Thanks to the countless non-paid great developers that reverse-engineered NTFS.

Boot Loader? Are you fucking jocking me? Everytime i install Linux after Windows, damn Windows bootloader overwrites GRUB and deletes Linux from boot list. Then, spending time to rescue Grub thanks to the world's most "selfless and friendly(!)" OS in the word!

On the contrary everytime i install Linux after the Windows, Grub recognize Windows properly and make a list with both Linux and Windows on it. There wasn't a time(not even only once) that i couln't boot Windows after Grub install.

Windows is a very very faulty and un-productive OS for me. It is a damn pain in the ass. Only i keep Windows for gaming nothing else.

Never attribute to incompetence that which can be explained by mere inexperience, but your attempt to pretend a well-engineered and widely used distribution of Linux is somehow at fault for your inability to perform an installation that many complete without any difficulty at all smells of troll.

Grub didn't break your Windows installation. The Grub setup knows exactly how to set up Grub to boot Windows, without you having to know how at all.

Linux didn't botch your ntfs-3g installation or refuse to mount media. I have done this so many times without any preparation other than the ability to follow a few elementary instructions that I cannot believe you when you claim that Linux is to blame for this.

If you want help, take the advice you are given, follow it exactly, and learn what you are doing. If you do not, then just go away.

Aww diddums did I upset you? Must have done as you feel the need to come in, ranting and raving and bragging about how smart you are. No I won't try that because the whole point is that Linux will never be my primary OS as I love my games too much.

My point is that Linux isn't a friendly operating system for the average user, it's as simple as that. I've currently got XBMC live going on it but I've still had to spend a lot of time finding up drivers and getting my sound working. I had an easier time getting OS-X Snow Leopard running on that Revo than Linux... the only thing that wouldn't use was my wifi card & ethernet controllers & it crashed too often.

Because nobody on Windows was interested enough to reverse engineer a the filesystem and write a driver for it, simple as that. It's not impossible, or better said, it is as impossible as it would be for Linux to mount NTFS drives without the NTFS-3G drivers.

People wrote drivers for NTFS for Linux exactly because it's used in a hell of a lot of places, and that driver is still developed because right now the features supported by NTFS-3G correspond to somewhere around NTFS 1.2 (Win NT4) with bits and pieces from NTFS 3 (Win 2000).