Getting at NTFS drives from Linux

Jun. 06, 2006

We've all been there. There's a file on a Windows NTFS drive and there seems to be no way on God's Earth to get to it directly from your Linux system. Paragon Software Group has an answer: its latest release of NTFS for Linux 5.0.

I haven't had a chance to kick the tires of this model, but the last version impressed both myself and PC Mag Labs.

NTFS for Linux comes in two versions. The first, the Personal Edition, includes a bootable recovery CD with Paragon's own NTFS for Linux driver built in. When booting from this CD, the user can access NTFS and Linux volumes with complete read and write access. In addition, they can change configuration files, add drivers, and even move important documents to any removable media or network share.

The Professional Edition includes that functionality, and also enables you to check on file system integrity, create NTFS volumes, perform many NTFS file system related tasks, and copy (backup/restore) files/directories between NTFS and Linux-supported file systems.

Serious network managers will also be pleased to find out that it includes the Paragon Logical Disk Manager driver. This special driver lets you mount all Microsoft Dynamic Volumes (simple, spanned, striped, mirrored, and RAID5) under Linux. That is no easy trick.

Most users, however, will find themselves reaching for the bootable recovery CD. While there are other ways to get to NTFS disks from Linux, for ease of use and speed, the last version of NTFS for Linux was the program to beat, and I'm sure this one improves on those areas.

The key to all this is Paragon's NTFS driver. Unfortunately, it's proprietary software. You can download a trial version of the Personal Edition to see if it works for you. If it does, you'll probably want to buy the full version for $19.95. I think it's worth the money, to a PC repair tech.

The Professional Edition, at $149.95, isn't for most people. However, if I were in charge of repairing or maintaining a serious hybrid network of, say, more than 50 Linux and Windows systems, I'd be writing up a requisition document for it. It's one of those programs that when you need it, you really need it.


-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols