[vox-tech] Data Conversion From M$ to Linux Question

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Daniel Hurt (dwhurt@ucdavis.edu):

> So the next hurdle that I have is the conversion of my multimedia data 
> from my desktop.  I have 300Gb of data approximately stored on NTFS 
> disks that I would like to keep and I am trying to figure out the best 
> way to do that and then convert my disks to a Linux File System like 
> reiserFS or XFS.

Observation:  One gathers that you have no backups.  Thus, anything you
attempt that touches your NTFS filesystems increases your risks, which
are already considerable.

That having been said, you can use something like QtParted (open-source
clone of Partition Magic) front-ending the ntfsresize utility, e.g., on
the System Rescue CD, http://www.sysresccd.org/, to gradually and
non-destructively snip off chunks of NTFS, to repurpose as native-Linux
partitions.  

(Did I correctly understand that some of your NTFS storage is on some
sort of RAID 1 pair?  If so, I have no idea how available Linux tools
deal with that.  Caveat user.)

> Problems, do not know what the status of NTFS file support on Linux.

The newer driver has very safe and reliable read-only support.  It has
conservative and reliable, but rather limited write support.

> Last time I looked into it was 3 years ago and read support was 
> buggy, write support was only if you were crazy.

This is a perception based on several things:

1.  The older driver's author not bothering to include a check for NTFS 
    format version string, before being willing to carry out write 
    operations.  Thus, it insouciantly attempts obsolete-version writes 
    onto newer NTFS versions it doesn't understand.  This avoidable
    error never happens with the newer driver.

2.  The older driver's author didn't write it to be SMP-safe.

3.  Most casual readers aren't even aware that there have been two
    completely different filesystem drivers.

Further note:  In the short and medium term, Captive NTFS might be
useful to use (which please see).  The newest Knoppix includes it, as
does Kanotix -- among others.

-- 
Cheers,   "Why is the alphabet in that order?  Is it because of that song?"
Rick Moen                                              -- Steven Wright
rick@linuxmafia.com