Cannot Import Volume - External Drive (NTFS)

[jai]

Hi,

I have installed freenas 8.0 successfully on an old laptop. I would like to be able to share the contents of a USB external drive (1 terabyte) that is formatted to ntfs.

The webgui shows the drive correctly, and calls it da1s1. However, when i try and import the volume nothing happens. It doesn't show an error, it just doesn't appear in the volumes list.

I've tried following these instructions:

http://shebangme.blogspot.com/2011/06/mounting-external-usb-drive-formatted.html

But i think they must be out of date, fuse seems to be already running. However when i try and mount the drive like this:

# mkdir /mnt/usb
# mount -t ntfs /dev/da1s1 /mnt/usb/

It locks up! I need to do a ctrl-Z to get out of it.

Anybody know a solution? This has been driving me mad

 

[Milhouse]

Try upgrading to 8.0.1-BETA4, it significantly improved the import process which may help with NTFS volumes.

 

[jai]

Thanks for your prompt reply!

But actually, I did try upgrading to BETA4. And BETA3. They both seem to install ok, but the Webgui no longer worked. I got the error "Unhandled Exception" on my web browser.

Maybe I should try freenas 7?

 

[Milhouse]

Did you clear your browser cache? Your browser cache may still be full of junk from 8.0-RELEASE, that's a pretty common issue (so common it should be mentioned in the release notes as it's sure to be a problem with every release/upgrade).

Regarding mounting from the command line, you might also want to try "mount -t ntfs-3g ..." if the GUI still isn't working for you.

 

[ProtoSD]

I think those instructions were intended to be used for version 7. You don't need to load a fuse driver in version 8 to mount NTFS.

DO NOT TRY TO MOUNT NTFS FROM THE GUI... Other users have reported problems and said that their drives were corrupted.

You can mount from the command line similar to what that blog described, but the device name may not always be the same and this is why the command may fail or just hang.

If you can find the device name for your NTFS disk by looking thru the output of the 'dmesg' command, and say you find /dev/da1
Then do an 'ls /dev/da1*' and look for the device that looks something like da1s1a.... and use that with your mount command.

so the mount command might look like 'mount -t ntfs /dev/da1s1a /mnt/usb'

This doesn't mean that after you mount it that you can share it, that's not how FreeNAS works just yet. You can only mount so that you can copy files from your NTFS disk onto your NAS volume.

 

[jai]

I thought that might have been the issue, so i did try clearing the browser cache.

I also tried using Internet Explorer (instead of Chrome).

Maybe it is something specific to my hardware?

 

[jai]

protosd, are you saying there is no way to share an external ntfs drive?

I can't format it to something else, because it's got almost a terabyte of data on it and i don't have any other storage that big.

Is it possible to import and share ntfs external drives on version 7.0?

 

[ProtoSD]

Also, jpaetzel said there is a bug in the importer for NTFS in the GUI that is being worked on. It'll probably be fixed by the final release of 8.01.

 

[ProtoSD]

@jai, I'm not sure about version .7, I've never used it. It's possible to mount your NTFS drive from the command line, but sharing it is a whole different story. You need to have a mount point and FreeNAS needs to be 'aware' of it. If you create that mount point outside of the GUI, it doesn't persist during a reboot, and Freenas is also not aware of it because it was created outside the GUI. Sharing looks in the database to get its info about mount points. It's not impossible, but not something I want to write a How-To for either. Be patient, there should be another beta or an RC1 coming out very soon hopefully, like maybe less than 2 weeks? (Just a guess)

 

[jai]

Thanks for your help. I'll keep an eye out for the next release, and see if i can get version 7 working in the mean time

Cheers

 

[jai]

If anybody else is having this problem, or interested for other reasons, i can confirm that FreeNAS version .7 is working perfectly for me with my ntfs external drive :)

 

[pslleung]

It is so unfornate that the issue was resolved in 8.0.1 RC2 ....

 

[ProtoSD]

It is so unfornate that the issue was resolved in 8.0.1 RC2 ....

You mean WASN'T resolved?

Yes, I agree.

 

[pslleung]

sorry, my typo, yes, it was "WASN'T" ..... I think a lot of people are waiting .... to copy their ntfs volume pending the fix ....

 

[maddis]

Hi, i'm not able to import/mount my existing external NTFS drives.

the importer "imports" with no error but there is nothing mounted at the mount point.

If i connect via ssh and try to mount it manualy with mount_ntfs /dev/da0s1 /mnt/extern or with mount -t ntfs /dev/da0s1 /mnt/extern i alway get the following message:
fuse: failed to open fuse device: No such file or directory
fuse_mount failed.
Unmounting /dev/da0s1 (extern)

did i miss a step?

*edit:
tried with 8.01-STABLE

 

[maddis]

ok.. if have to use mount_ntfs-kern than it works...

 

[ProtoSD]

ok.. if have to use mount_ntfs-kern than it works...

That's not the way it is designed or supposed to work, you shouldn't need a hack... Although at this point I don't know what it's designed or supposed to do because as far as I know it's NEVER worked right. There's a ticket open for it, PLEASE PLEASE, go to the link, create an account for yourself, and update the ticket with your info. It would be nice to get this working properly.

https://support.freenas.org/ticket/759

 

[originalprime]

I just tried using 8.01 stable to import an existing NTFS volume through the web GUI. No dice. I mounted it in an old Dell and copied everything over the network. Neener, neener, neeeeener!

 

[timx4]

ok.. if have to use mount_ntfs-kern than it works...

what is whole syntx... thx

 

[ProtoSD]

Timx4 - It's in the Unofficial FAQ, look @ my signature below.