Mounting an NTFS drive

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Hey Chuck,

I’ve read and reread your posts explaining how to mount a NTFS drive so Plex can map a library to it. I am SOOO close but I’m missing something. I can successfully mount and mount the drive to /disks/pi. I can even use the File Manager and view the files on the drive and even play them. But, when it comes to Plex, I try adding the library and I get to /disks/pi/Media and the it’s grayed out. I know it must be permissions related but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to edit them. Please help!

2

Would you mind creating a regular thread or may I have permission to make this a public thread?
I can help better in a public thread.

Also, please show how your NTFS mounts are; the directory listing (ls -la before mounting) ?

3

Feel free to make this a public thread.

Is this what you’re looking for?

2019-01-26%2015_08_40-pi%40ScottsPi_%20~
2019-01-26 15_08_40-pi@ScottsPi_ ~.png515×514 11.5 KB

4

Or is this more of what you’re looking for? This is after mounting the device. (Apologies, I work in IT but am very new to Linux)

2019-01-26%2015_15_06-pi%40ScottsPi_%20~

5

I would like you do unmount the NTFS partition.
Then, from /disks/pi, ls -la

It looks like, at ls -la /disks/pi you have no permission for anyone but root to access Media. Also, if you look at . (meaning the mount point itself) , only root can access there.

The system is mount as user root:root. You seem to run as pi:pi.
Without seeing your /etc/fstab, I think your mount options are in error. You need to add uid= and gid= options and with those options, specify the UID and GID for user pi

7

etc/fstab
2019-01-26%2020_06_58-pi%40ScottsPi_%20~

ls -la with /disks/pi unmounted and showing my id info

2019-01-26%2020_09_27-pi%40ScottsPi_%20_disks_pi
2019-01-26 20_09_27-pi@ScottsPi_ _disks_pi.png856×190 7.01 KB

Also, when I ran chown -R chuck:chuck /disks, I used pi:pi instead of chuck:chuck, not root:root.

What do I need to change?

8

NTFS doesn’t accept normal Linux permissions. Everything should be mounting up like this:

[chuck@lizum /win.151]$ ls -la
total 646725
drwxrwxrwx   1 root root      8192 Jan  4 10:32 ./
drwxr-xr-x. 25 root root      4096 Jan 16 16:51 ../
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root root    384322 Jul 16  2016 bootmgr*
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root root         1 Jul 16  2016 BOOTNXT*
lrwxrwxrwx   2 root root        10 Sep  1  2017 Documents and Settings -> /win/Users/
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root root 209715200 Jan 15 17:21 pagefile.sys*
drwxrwxrwx   1 root root         0 Jul 16  2016 PerfLogs/
drwxrwxrwx   1 root root      8192 Sep 27 19:26 ProgramData/
drwxrwxrwx   1 root root      8192 Nov  8 22:44 Program Files/
drwxrwxrwx   1 root root      8192 Jan  4 10:27 Program Files (x86)/
drwxrwxrwx   1 root root         0 Sep  1  2017 Recovery/
drwxrwxrwx   1 root root         0 Sep  8  2017 $Recycle.Bin/
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root root  16777216 Jan 15 17:21 swapfile.sys*
drwxrwxrwx   1 root root      8192 Jan  4 10:38 System Volume Information/
drwxrwxrwx   1 root root      4096 Sep  1  2017 Users/
drwxrwxrwx   1 root root     28672 Feb 11  2018 Windows/
[chuck@lizum /win.152]$

Notice the permissions. They are rwxrwxrwx (777). This is how it should mount with an internal drive always at the same physical location. (this happens to be the a dual-boot system)

/dev/sda2   /win                    ntfs    auto,defaults 0 0

Therefore,

  1. Unmount the drive
  2. Make certain the permission for /disks/pi is set as 777 and owner pi:pi before the mount.
  3. Remount by hand and check the results.
9

How exactly do I do #2?

10

I see what happened, you haven’t learned basic linux command line skills yet. You will need these if you wish to stay with Linux. There are many tutorials out on the internet which exercises. It’s really in your best interest to take a few of them. For as powerful as Linux is, it’s equally unforgiving. I can always help with PMS related but I unfortunately don’t have the time to teach Linux. In another life, I did.

Here is my original tutorial. I hope this fills in the missing information.

https://forums.plex.tv/t/using-ext-or-ntfs-drives-internal-or-external-on-linux/

11

I highly suspect that you are only missing the ntfs-3g package. Everything else looks fine :+1:

So please do this: sudo apt install ntfs-3g and reboot your Pi. You might also have to change your entry in /etc/fstab from ntfs to ntfs-3g.

1 Like
12

OMFG, I LOVE you. Eff… I had forgotten that I started with a fresh install of Raspbian. I feel like a fool but I am SOOOOOO flippin happy right now. I have been banging my head against a wall for DAYS.

Thanks to Chuck, too. Without your guide it would have taken even longer.

13

I’ve since updated the guide to highlight that subtlety.
Uglymagoo’s referencing it here made me to revisit the guide.

1 Like