Aug 28,2019 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions
LABEL= N A M E none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse Note: The N A M E must be replaced by your Drive name found in the step 1. What to do if the Drive NAME contains words that are separated by a space? For example with M A C N T F S W R I T E, the spaces will stand for “ 040” (M A C 0 4 0 N T F S 0 4 0 W R I T E). Press exactly Ctrl + O to save and Ctrl + X to end the Terminal.
NTFS (New Technology File System) is the file system used for depositing and recovering files on a hard disk. If you want to write a Boot Camp partition on your Mac system, you should use exFAT since the Mac’s operating system is already wired to read that.
![How to activate ntfs for mac How to activate ntfs for mac](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125849293/532110019.jpg)
Part 1: Free Ways to Write to NTFS Drives on a Mac
![How How](http://www.m3datarecovery.com/images/product/m3-ntfs-for-mac-activation.png)
Mac can read but not write to NTFS drives on a Mac, however, there are solutions.
1. Third party drivers (FREE):
Although this method requires some involving activities, you can get it to work.
- Download and install osxfuse.
- If you don’t have Homebrew yet you will download and install it next.
- Install command line tools. Go to applications and navigate to utilities from there. Run the command 'xcode-select –install'. You will see a pop up with the option to install. Choose install.
- After this you will move on to disable system integrity protection.
- Once system integrity protection is disabled you should reboot your Mac. As the system begins to reboot, press and hold command+R. The system will enter into a recovery mode.
- While in recovery mode, open a terminal from utilities and enter the command 'csrutil disable'.
- After that command you will now reboot your system in the usual way to take it out of recovery mode.
- Once fully operational, open a terminal and run these commands 'sudo mv / sbin/mount_ntfs / sbin/mount_ntfs.original' and 'sudo 1n –s /usr/local/sbin/mount_ntfs /sbin/mount_ntfs'.
- Enable system integrity protection. After this, repeat the same process to press and hold command+R while rebooting the system to enter into recovery mode.
- Enter the code 'csrutil enable'.
- Reboot your Mac to normal mode and you should be able to write to NTFS drives on a Mac now.
Open a terminal window and enter the command 'brew install homebrew/fuse/ntfs -3g'.
If you ever wish to reverse the entire process, you would need to disable system integrity protection ad run these commands right after 'sudo rm /sbin/mount_ntfs' and 'sudo mv /sbin/mount_ntfs.original /sbin/mount_ntfs' and 'brew uninstall ntsf-3g'.
You can uninstall osxfuse from the system and remove it completely from system panel. Enable system integrity protection after the uninstall.
The operating system of Mac has experimental support for writing NTFS but this is automatically off and has to be turned on by some steps. This method is the least tried and the least stable. It is in no way guaranteed and if it does not work it is not the fault of the instructions. It just does not work sometimes. Also if does not work, it could generate issue for you in the future with writing NTFS.
- To make the process easier you should change the drives word label to single word label if it has not been done already
- Open a terminal by going to applications then utilities and open a terminal. Enter the command 'sudo nano /etc/fstab'
- Add the command 'LABEL=NAME none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse' to nano and name the file what you want by replacing NAME. If you want to write more than one ntfs file you can do so by adding a different command for them as the one above.
- Press and hold control+O to save the file or files and control+X to close nano.
(If you want to write to multiple NTFS drives that you have, just add a new line for each drives.)
If the drive is connected to your Mac, then disconnect it and connect it again. Go to finder, click on go then select go to folder and type '/Volumes'.
If this was Windows, you would find your missing USB drive in Windows by now. But Windows writes on NTFS automatically without these steps so it will be easy to find your missing USB in Windows.
Part 2: How to Recover Data from NTFS Drive
If your data in NTFS file is lost during any of the above mentioned processes, you can recover it using a hard drive data recovery software. We recommend Recoverit Data Recovery. This data recovery tool will recover data from NTFS drives. If you connect your USB device and you cannot see it you can follow our steps to find your missing USB drive in Windows and follow the simple steps to recover data from NTFS drives.
Download and launch Recoverit on you Mac and follow the next simple steps to perform Mac hard drive data recovery.
Step 1 To recover lost data from your NTFS hard drive on Mac, select you Mac hard drive where your data gets lost and click 'Start' to have a scan on your NTFS drive.
Step 2 The scan will require a little time to finish searching lost files. The scanning procedure will be displayed in real time.
Step 3 After scanning, you can preview the recoverable files, select the desired ones and click on 'Recover' to get them back.
A Mac can read NTFS files but cannot write on them. This can be changed by using some free third party apps that can easily be downloaded, installed and used on a Mac to write NTFS. Apple also has an experimental NTFS write support. You can make use of this for writing NTFS on Mac.
After finishing writing data to NTFS drive, it would be better to uninstall the application in a secure way.
Note: Recover Lost Mac Data under Mac OS X 10.13 (High Sierra)
Due to macOS High Sierra (macOS 10.13) requirement, Mac users are not allowed an access to the built-in system drive from any apps. Therefore, if you need to restore lost data from the system disk under macOS 10.13, please 'disable System Integrity Protection' first.
How to disable 'System Integrity protection'? Please follow the steps below.
Step 1Reboot the Mac and hold down'Command + R' keys simultaneously after you hear the startup chime, this will boot OS X into Recovery Mode.
Step 2When the 'OS X Utilities' screen appears, pull down the 'Utilities' menu at the top of the screen instead, and choose 'Terminal'.
Step 3In the 'Terminal' window, type in 'csrutil disable' and press 'Enter' then restrart your Mac.
What's Wrong with Mac
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With the advent of the NTFS file system from Windows OS, many Mac users are not able to write to NTFS formatted disks, and then to share content with Microsoft, but only to read the contents.
At the moment, Apple is not yet releasing a native support for this file system format, but small and light extensions come in against us to fill this gap. In this guide, I will mention some programs free and some for a fee, even though I will focus more on the free ones, as I know many people who have spent quite a lot for a mac that would like these features by default.
1.) Extensions to payment. Just use a program like Tuxtera or Paragon NTFS for Mac These are extensions that should be installed regularly as if they were applications by following the on-screen displays. They support and full compatibility with various OS X, including the latest Lion and Mountain Lion or Maverick. Prices range between $ 25 and $ 40.
2.) Free Extensions. Regarding free Extensions advice MacFuse and NTFS 3G, which I remember to be installed together in order to avoid problems of compatibility and stability. MacFuse evolved in OSX Fuse, as the previous was not updated for about 4 years. These extensions work on all Mac OS X from 10.5 onwards. Were also tested on the latest OS X Lion and Mountain Lion (10.7 and 10.8) and work quite well, with some error message that is negligible, since the work is done very well. First install OSX Fuse, follow the on-screen instructions, and then install NTFS 3G. To verify the correct installation just check if there is a preference pane for OSX Fuse in the application settings. Then just restart your mac and configure the options preferred by the panel mentioned before and will be able to read and write to disks formatted in NTFS.
3.) I recommend using these extensions only when necessary to avoid conflict with drivers not fully supported on newer systems, from OS X Lion on, especially for what concerns NTFS 3G.
Here the relative links to the websites of specified programs :
- FUSE OSX (Mac Fuse)