Backing up to NTFS USB drive that can be read directly by Windows

Hey any one ever done this one? Using TKL Fileserver using cron job rsync command to back up files and folders from /srv/storage directories and from user home directories to NTFS USB drive. Got it to work and the files are there when the drive is hooked up to the fileserver. Disconnect drive from fileserver and connect it to Windows 7 machine files are not there??? Connect it back to fileserver and the files and folders are there. I miffed. I've been at this for hours. I have a need to do this for a client and he must have the USB drive NTFS and readable by Windows box. Can anyone Help?????

Replies (4)

NTFS

Reply 1 2011-05-10

Hi Jeremy,

You were right about the mounting issue. It looks like USB devices don't auto dismount when shutting down the server. FAT32 seems to work better.

Thanks,

Gary

Hey Gary

Reply 2 2011-05-05

Let me guess, you just removed the drive without unmounting it properly? And if you check the properties of the drive in Windows the space is used, just the files don't show up?

Try running a disk check on the drive (from Windows) and the files will hopefully appear. Whilst Linux can work with NTFS, in my experience it's not 100% reliable (like you've just experienced). If you make a point of unmounting properly then hopefully you won't experience too many issues.

FAT32 is a much better option for cross platform support, or ext2 (there is an ext2 driver that works well with Windows - at least with XP, I haven't tested it with anything later). ext3 will also work although I don't think it's as reliable (similar sort of issues to what you've experienced with NTFS) and ext4 (default for Ubuntu 10.04/TKL v11.x) support is either flakey or non-existant (don't recall exactly).

Why does it have to be NTFS? Are the files larger than 4GB?

The modules configure installed programs

Reply 3 2011-05-12

So I would guess that you'd need to install the services to be able to use the Webmin modules.

But.. Why did you manually upgrade Webmin? Did you make sure you got rid of the default TKL Webmin, as it may cause you problems (when you run a package upgrade it may revert to the TKL Webmin and/or cause problems with Webmin when you run a TKLBAM restore).

Un-used Webmin modules

Reply 4 2011-05-10

Can any one help with this issue. I have installed the most recent Webmin 1.55 and all the standard modules in order to get at the time settings one. That worked but ther are some still listed as Un-used that I would like to tinker with. Even after reinstalling them and refreshing them they still won't become usable! I don't know if there is some hidden setting like with the time reverting back 4 hours to universal time. Or is it somthing me as a linux newbe does'nt get. I really like turnkey and love tinkering with it to get what I want.

Thanks,

Gary (civilmann)