Failed to Mount Windows NTFS: Operation Not Permitted

By
Roy s

I got this issue when trying to mount a Windows disk in Linux. I have dual-boot Linux Mint 15 with Windows 8.

The situation:

pc-mint ~ # mount -t ntfs /dev/sda3 /media/mohamed/D
The disk contains an unclean file system (0, 0).
Metadata kept in Windows cache, refused to mount.
Failed to mount '/dev/sda3': Operation not permitted
The NTFS partition is in an unsafe state. Please resume and shutdown
Windows fully (no hibernation or fast restarting), or mount the volume
read-only with the 'ro' mount option.

The solution:

The problem is due to the new Windows 8 feature called “fast-startup”. When fast-startup is enabled, part of the metadata of all mounted partitions are restored to the state they were at during the previous shutdown. As a consequence, changes made on Linux may be lost. This can happen on any partition of an internal disk when leaving Windows 8, by selecting “Shutdown” or “Hibernate”. Leaving Windows 8 by selecting “Restart” however, is apparently safe.

To enable writing to the partitions on other operating systems, be sure the fast restarting of Windows 8 is disabled. This can be achieved by issuing as an Administrator the following command:

powercfg /h off

Reboot your machine and boot to Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

For read only support:

pc-mint ~ # mount -t ntfs -o ro /dev/sda3 /media/mohamed/D

Now check:

pc-mint ~ # ls /media/mohamed/D
Akeeba bookmark.htm FOTOS HTC Foto's recovered-19-5-2012 System Volume Information Torrents
ASKbot CarotDAV found.000 Mail $RECYCLE.BIN The Three Musketeers (2011) DVDRip XviD-MAXSPEED VBOX
askfix decoratie found.001 New folder (2) Scans TibcooCorses Vmware
backup FAMILY_VIDEO Gentoo 12.1 prv Software Tor-Browser wamp

Check write access:

pc-mint ~ $ touch /media/mohamed/D/example
 touch: cannot touch ‘/media/mohamed/D/example’: Read-only file system

For full read/write support:

pc-mint ~ $ ntfs-3g /dev/sda3 /media/mohamed/D

To automate the mount of the device in next reboot, add to /etc/fstab:

/dev/sda3  /media/mohamed/D  ntfs-3g auto,gid=1000,unmask=0002 0 0

You can add other disks if you like.

Enjoy!