NTFS disk on a dual boot became read-only

Question

A Windows10 / debian system with a shared ntfs drive:

# lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda           8:0    0 931.5G  0 disk 
├─sda1        8:1    0   9.3G  0 part [SWAP]
├─sda2        8:2    0  83.8G  0 part /home
└─sda3        8:3    0   100G  0 part /media/share
nvme0n1     259:0    0 465.8G  0 disk 
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0   100M  0 part /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2    0 435.7G  0 part 
└─nvme0n1p4 259:3    0  27.9G  0 part /

The share used to work well up until recently, when it became read-only on the linux part. I think I have the appropriate drivers for write access. The line in fstab:

$ cat /etc/fstab | grep share
UUID=2786FC7C74DF871D                     /media/share    ntfs    defaults        0       3

If I unmount it and then mount again:

# mount /dev/sda3 share
The disk contains an unclean file system (0, 0).
Metadata kept in Windows cache, refused to mount.
Falling back to read-only mount because the NTFS partition is in an
unsafe state. Please resume and shutdown Windows fully (no hibernation
or fast restarting.)
Could not mount read-write, trying read-only

In windows I checked the disk for errors and defragmented it, then used Shut down. No upgrades started during shutting down.

How to proceed?

Have you disabled fast startup https://www.windowscentral.com/how-disable-windows-10-fast-startup ? — Rusi, Jul 28 '19 at 14:15
Related: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/32796/why-is-my-file-system-mounted-as-read-only/411689 — Clockwork, Jul 07 '23 at 15:27

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 28 '19 at 18:38

5

Modern windows has something called fast startup that causes trouble for dual booting.

If you are using a modern windows (8 or 10) and dual booting you should keep it turned off

answered Jul 28 '19 at 18:38

Rusi

479
4
12

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 02 '23 at 08:04

2

Open the terminal and write the command
```
sudo fdisk -l
```
It will show your file system
Identify the partition you want permission for read and write, then type the command and give the partition name like this to your specific sda
```
sudo ntfsfix /dev/sda3
```

Credits: https://askubuntu.com/a/1187649

edited Mar 02 '23 at 08:04

AdminBee

21,637
21
47
71

answered Aug 28 '21 at 03:52

svp

1
2

1

Thank you. This worked for me. 1TB SSD dual booting Windows 10 and a Linux distro. A separate NTFS partition at `/dev/sda7` to share data between both OSs became read only for some reason so I could no longer write to it from Linux OS. `sudo ntfsfix /dev/sda7` fixed the problem. – FlexMcMurphy Oct 18 '22 at 17:56

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 03 '23 at 14:57

1

I had a similar issue. But in my case, there were issues with accessing the Hard Drive because Windows crashed (instead of properly shutting down), so it's possible Windows didn't properly unmount the HDD, and so Linux couldn't have proper access to it.

The fix for me was just to go into Windows, make sure the HDD is connected, and shutdown properly.

answered Jan 03 '23 at 14:57

Dmitry Shabat

41
1
4

+1 nice input for future readers. I imagine `fsck.ntfs` could also work but ... letting Windows solve windows issues is so much simpler. – Vorac Jan 04 '23 at 07:37

NTFS disk on a dual boot became read-only

3 Answers3