Yeah, I got a good deal on an USB 500 gb external hard drive which requires XP atleast to run. So I look at the file system and it already converted to NTFS just like any other hard drive that Windows 'sees'. I was wanting to collect Linux operating system to try out, I was wondering if this might be a problem since this is a Seagate Expansion External Drive. I thought it was a good value since it was $50.00.

Shouldn't be a problem at all.

What you'll need to do is install a linux distribution that comes with something called NTFS-3g, which is a plugin for Google's FUSE FS, that'll allow your Linux install to read/write to your USB HDD with it formatted in NTFS. Ubuntu 9.10, OpenSuSE 11.2 and Fedora 11 (all the latest versions) will come with it and just work out of the box :-)

Another way to do this would be to format the hard drive into FAT32, you'll loose the ability to have single files bigger than 4GB, but it'll work natively on pretty much every operating system and also work on things like the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii.

Wow. I didn't know about NTFS-3g. I miss using Fedora. I had Fedora 10 and liked it. I had the Fedora 10 iso burned to a dvd. Now I read that they have Fedora 12 out. I am curious about the Longhorn Linux that they used Longhorn Windows as a model to work from.

NTFS-3G is an open source cross-platform implementation of the Microsoft Windows NTFS file system with read-write support. NTFS-3G uses the FUSE file system interface, so it can run unmodified on many different operating systems. It has been reported to work with Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Solaris, BeOS, QNX and Haiku. It is licensed under either the GNU General Public License or a Commercial license. It is a partial fork of ntfsprogs and is under active maintenance and development.

NTFS-3G was introduced by one of the senior Linux NTFS developers, Szabolcs Szakacsits (IPA: [ˈsɒbolt͡ʃ ˈsɒkɒt͡ʃit͡ʃ]), in July 2006. The first stable version was released on 2007-02-21 as version 1.0.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntfs-3g

Interesting stuff. It is like going back to school.

I am curious if Kerebos will work on the NTFS-3G.

Isn't Kerberos just network auth? If you're thinking in regards to user permissions on files on NTFS drive using NTFS-3g I think it'd be down to the OS.

Yeah. I got Fedora 12 up and running now. I am so used to Kerebos associated with Windows NT and Windows 2000 being built on that. It gave me four options when loading the Fedora 12. One was shrink; It worked for me. Although I don't have XP any more. I don't know how long I will be able to go without Wine. I was really wanting a dual boot; I need my crutch or atleast I think I do but I still got plenty of other hard drives. I can already tell a difference in how much faster this Fedora version loads up faster than the XP. It didn't have a bit of problem with the expansion drive after the conversion. I really don't what file system it is running now.

Wow, this is freaky. Out of the blue XP comes back up. I thought it was gone. All I can think of is that Fedora must be loading off the 4.7 gb DVD-RW disc. This morning I guess it didn't read from the DVD and just loaded XP like it used to do. The Fedora didn't load to the desktop because I saved the iso on expansion drive and used Poweriso to burn to the dvd. But when I clicked on the load up program in Fedora desktop it gave me the impression that it was loading to the 30 gb hard drive and the 500 gb expansion drive. I guess since the dvd-rw disc was so big it must of thought that was the hard drive. Scratching my head on this one.

Ubuntu sees all NTFS drives anyway, I mean I got 3 of them (internal HDs), and each of them having a different OS on it (Win 7, WinXP, WinVista)

All 3 shows up just fine in Ubuntu (and I tried Opensuse also) and I play off my music folders after i mount them. And mounting is pretty much just a double click.

So I don't see no problem your linux seeing the NTFS external drive and if someway it's still empty you can always reformat it to FAT32 if you want to, especially if you aren't gonna be using Win OS-es.

Is it just me or does Fedora 12 look just like Ubuntu? I never could get the Suse to run. Could have been a bad burn because Ubuntu was never a problem to run. It ran just as easy as Debian; Another favorite. I am thinking of putting another hard drive in to download the variations of Linux to since the 4.7 gb RW dvds under the iso burners want to erase first instead of add to when collecting them. I have had hard drives smaller than 4.7 gb. Still curious about the Puppy Linux. Makes me wonder about the maximum amount of operating systems one can have on one computer. I have noticed on each version of Linux someone has been nice enough to show visual representations of the individual desktops. Seems like Real Player works better on the newer versions of some Linux distros.

I run Linux at work now, they all downgraded from XP to windows 7, so i installed Ubuntu..
So far so good, even got it on the MS domain..
Use Samba for the file shares if needed..
Or i use the Network share thing in the Ubuntu OS to see the shares on the Network.
I use Wine to run Office 2k3 so i have outlook..
And have installed XP on a VM so i can use that if need be...
I am a MICROSOFT CERTIFIED SYSTEM ENGINEER... and Windows 7 Blows!
God i love ubuntu...

To Rainbow,
If your going to run Linux, why not just burn your ISO then install.. lastly format the drive to be Linux specific?

Yeah, ReadyForMore, I am going to have to reburn to a different cd or dvd. Fedora 12 went away like XP did. Nothing is showing up on the big 4.7 gb RW DVD. It is strange because for a day it went through all the gyrations of downloading to the hard drives. It gave 4 options. I think where I messed up when it was supposed to download to the XP desktop where one either had the option to try the Fedora and then install it ot the hard drive if one wanted. Instead it downloaded to the expansion drive then I used Poweriso there to burn to the big dvd rw. What is happening now is when the computer boots up I am given the option to boot from cd. It is like my dvd rw rom by Liteon is not reading from the dvd rw. So XP just boots up. Even after Windows boots up and I go to My Computer it shows nothing on the dvd.

Okay, now I have some anomolies I think that are caused by Poweriso and my dvd burner. In My Computer it is showing an extra cd rom that I don't have and an extra hard drive that I don't have. Even when I put my copy of Fedora 10 I had burned with Nero it doesn't read that either. So I am going to try the old reliable method of formatting the hard drive and then putting in Fedora 10 and rebooting from that.

Logged in as Live User to Fedora 12 this time. It worked a lot better this time.