external USB NTFS drive writable by parallels?

consultmac · Oct 8, 2006

I've searched the forums and which something similar to this issue has been mentioned, I'm not sure of the answer to my situation from any of them.

I have a Maxtor 500Gb external HD that I've used for all my PC backups but it's formatted NTFS.

I know that OS X natively mounts NTFS volumes as read-only.

Can Parallels connect to and use such a volume read/write?

unused_user_name · Oct 8, 2006

Try connecting the drive as a USB device to Windows.

1) Plug the drive into MacOS
2) Unmount (eject) the drive from MacOS, but do not unplug it
3) Use the USB connection thingy in the lower right side of the Parallels Window to connect whatever device is your USB hard drive. It may have a stange name like "AFK1080" or somesuch.

You will probably get the "wait 5-10 seconds" bug, but it is worth a shot.

consultmac · Oct 9, 2006

Thanks. I appreciate your reply and enthusiasm. But how can I get an official stance from Parallels on whether or not this scenario is supported or intended to be supported? Is there a document that lists the supported configurations?

unused_user_name said:
Try connecting the drive as a USB device to Windows.

1) Plug the drive into MacOS
2) Unmount (eject) the drive from MacOS, but do not unplug it
3) Use the USB connection thingy in the lower right side of the Parallels Window to connect whatever device is your USB hard drive. It may have a stange name like "AFK1080" or somesuch.

You will probably get the "wait 5-10 seconds" bug, but it is worth a shot.

lunarmys · Oct 21, 2006

i'm having the exact same problem

i've tried:
1. plug hdd in
2. unmount in os x
3. click usb-thingy (bottom left in parallels)

what happens is that parallels complains that the device is in use by another process and _os x_ mounts the disk again

i've also tried auto-connect = on
but then parallels goes ballistic (spawning a new window saying that it's in use by another process every second)

what's up with that?

how do i get this external hdd to work in windows? (have to mount it in windows since it's ntfs and i want to write to it)

thanks in advance

/ d

nycruza · Oct 22, 2006

consultmac said:
I've searched the forums and which something similar to this issue has been mentioned, I'm not sure of the answer to my situation from any of them.

I have a Maxtor 500Gb external HD that I've used for all my PC backups but it's formatted NTFS.

I know that OS X natively mounts NTFS volumes as read-only.

Can Parallels connect to and use such a volume read/write?

YES, as a shared folder.

Open the Parallel Console, select edit, select Shared Folders, select the +
You can browse for the external OR type in the path /Volumes/"name of HD"
give it a name andmake sure "read only" is NOT selected.

AJM

joem · Oct 22, 2006

Ummm... that actually won't work without an NTFS read/write driver. OSX mounts NTFS drives as read only, and at least until recently (and I haven't seen any announcements to the contrary, and I'm sure I would have) read only meant read only. So the answer to the basic question is, no, you can't. If you have a third party driver that will write NTFS, then the previous suggestion might work. Until then, NTFS is, well, read only.

luca · Oct 23, 2006

consultmac said:
I've searched the forums and which something similar to this issue has been mentioned, I'm not sure of the answer to my situation from any of them.

I have a Maxtor 500Gb external HD that I've used for all my PC backups but it's formatted NTFS.

I know that OS X natively mounts NTFS volumes as read-only.

Can Parallels connect to and use such a volume read/write?

Hi,

This is working fine for me without any problem (writing to NTFS on external USB real drive).
I have a USB external drive formatted under OS X. One partition is OS X, one is FAT32, one is NTFS (formatted under XP with Bootcamp).

As you said, the NTFS is read-only directly in Mac OS X.
Under Parallels with Windows XP I can write easily to this NTFS partition.
I mean I can copy file to the NTFS, I can modify files on the NTFS, I can delete files on the NTFS.

For now (build 1940) this is working with External USB drive only.
If only Parallels could "see" the NTFS on my MacBook Pro internal drive!

Luca

lunarmys · Oct 25, 2006

luca said:
...
Under Parallels with Windows XP I can write easily to this NTFS partition.
I mean I can copy file to the NTFS, I can modify files on the NTFS, I can delete files on the NTFS.
...

let me be the first one to call bullshit(!)

it doesn't work, fact. :-/