Format USB drive to NTFS so it is usable under Windows
By Sarah Smith
When I format a drive to NTFS under Windows and plug it into the Ubuntu machine, it is perfectly usable. But when I format it under Ubuntu using Disks (delete all partitions and create one single partition with NTFS), it does not show up when plugged into the Windows machine.
Please note that in both cases the USB drive contains only one, primary partition formatted to NTFS, for example:
/dev/sdb- the actual device/dev/sdb1- the only, primary partition
I've observed this behaviour both with a solid state USB pen-drive, as well as with an external USB magnetic HDD.
How to (re)format a USB HDD or a stick to NTFS under Ubuntu so it is usable under Windows?
24 Answers
gparted (GNU Partition Editor) is a good graphical tool for formating drives to a variety of different filesystem types. You can install it with sudo apt-get install gparted.
Just as when you are using Disks, be very careful that you are making changes to the correct device. You can format your device to NTFS using the following steps:
- Select the correct device from the dropdown selector on the top right.
- Delete any partitions that already exist on the device.
- Create a new partition using all of the available space and set the type to
ntfs - Click the "Apply" button and wait for the operations to complete
If Windows still doesn't recognize the device, the partition table may be in a different type than the MS-DOS type (Ubuntu uses gpt partition type by default I think). Click "View >> Device Information" from the menu to see what the partition table type is. In this case, use the "Device >> Create Partition Table" menu option to change the partition table type to MS-DOS. You may have to follow the above steps again to create your NTFS partition.
1With mkntfs
Install mkntfs which is provided by package ntfs-3g:
sudo apt-get install ntfs-3gFind the partition of your USB drive with lsblk -f or df -Th. Let's assume it's at /dev/sdb1.
Unmount the drive with umount /dev/sdb, otherwise you'll get the error
/dev/sdb1 is mounted.
Refusing to make a filesystem here!Then format the partition:
sudo mkntfs --fast --label myUsbDrive /dev/sdb1If that succeeded, you'll see a message like this:
Cluster size has been automatically set to 4096 bytes.
Creating NTFS volume structures.
mkntfs completed successfully. Have a nice day.Indeed Ubuntu Disks utility creates partition with the wrong id:
$ sudo fdisk /dev/sdc Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.27.1). Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them. Be careful before using the write command. Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/sdc: 57,9 GiB, 62109253632 bytes, 121307136 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0xcee48da0 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sdc1 2048 121307135 121305088 57,9G 83 LinuxCommand (m for help): q
When you create the partiton with GParted the partition gets created with the right id and it is perfectly visible under Windows:
$ sudo fdisk /dev/sdc Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.27.1). Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them. Be careful before using the write command. Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/sdc: 57,9 GiB, 62109253632 bytes, 121307136 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0x0bce1084 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sdc1 2048 121307135 121305088 57,9G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFATCommand (m for help): q $
It is always possibile to change the partition type with fdisk, but the conclusion is that it is better just to always use GParted.
Perhaps we shall file a bug ticket with Disks developers?
1I have succeeded with this task using gparted, as suggested already.
It is also possible to let mkusb create a persistent live drive (with standard Ubuntu or a community flavour: Kubuntu, Lubuntu ... Xubuntu). In this process, partition #1 will be created as an NTFS partition for sharing data with Windows.
$ sudo lsblk -o model,name,size,fstype,label,mountpoint /dev/sdd MODEL NAME SIZE FSTYPE LABEL MOUNTPOINT DT Workspace sdd 29,1G ├─sdd1 14G ntfs usbdata ├─sdd2 1M ├─sdd3 244M vfat usbboot ├─sdd4 893M iso9660 Lubuntu 16.04.1 LTS amd64 └─sdd5 14G ext4 casper-rw $ sudo parted /dev/sdd print Model: Kingston DT Workspace (scsi) Disk /dev/sdd: 31,2GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: gpt Disk Flags: Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 2 1049kB 2097kB 1049kB primary bios_grub 3 2097kB 258MB 256MB fat32 primary boot, esp 4 258MB 1194MB 936MB primary 5 1194MB 16,2GB 15,0GB ext2 primary 1 16,2GB 31,2GB 15,0GB ntfs primary msftdata- Partition #1 is located at the end of the drive, but the number in the partition table decides, if Windows can see it.
- If you use the GUID partition table, GPT, it helps to have the flag
msftdataaccording to the listed output ofparted. The first time Windows sees the USB pendrive, it might want to repair it. Answer yes, let it try to repair it. Windows will respond something like 'no error found', but it does something, probably writes somewhere, that it has seen the partition and marked it 'good', because next time it will not want to repair it.
You find more details at the following links,
