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New Fedora package: ntfs-3g-system-compression

If you have a Windows 10 installation, you might not be able to read all files on its NTFS partition. Under certain conditions, Microsoft compresses system files with new compression algorithms which the ntfs-3g driver can’t currently read. Files are displayed with question marks when listed using ls, and you’ll see Input/output error or unsupported reparse point when trying to access these files. Here’s an example:

$ ls -l Windows
...
drwxrwxrwx 1 kparal kparal        0 Sep 15 09:33  ModemLogs
-????????? ? ?      ?             ?            ?  notepad.exe
drwxrwxrwx 1 kparal kparal        0 Dec 14 21:57  OCR
drwxrwxrwx 1 kparal kparal        0 Sep 15 09:33 'Offline Web Pages'
drwxrwxrwx 1 kparal kparal    16384 Dec 14 14:17  Panther
drwxrwxrwx 1 kparal kparal        0 Sep 15 09:33  Performance
-rwxrwxrwx 1 kparal kparal   984966 Feb 13 23:15  PFRO.log
drwxrwxrwx 1 kparal kparal        0 Sep 15 09:33  PLA
drwxrwxrwx 1 kparal kparal    49152 Dec 14 21:59  PolicyDefinitions
drwxrwxrwx 1 kparal kparal   163840 Feb 14 22:41  Prefetch
drwxrwxrwx 1 kparal kparal     4096 Dec 14 14:15  PrintDialog
-????????? ? ?      ?             ?            ?  Professional.xml
drwxrwxrwx 1 kparal kparal     4096 Sep 15 09:33  Provisioning
-????????? ? ?      ?             ?            ?  regedit.exe
drwxrwxrwx 1 kparal kparal        0 Dec 14 22:09  Registration
drwxrwxrwx 1 kparal kparal        0 Sep 15 11:11  RemotePackages
...

$ ls -l Windows/notepad.exe
ls: cannot access 'Windows/notepad.exe': Input/output error

$ cp Windows/notepad.exe .
cp: cannot stat 'Windows/notepad.exe': Input/output error

$ stat Windows/notepad.exe
File: Windows/notepad.exe -> unsupported reparse point
Size: 25            Blocks: 0          IO Block: 4096   symbolic link
Device: 803h/2051d    Inode: 247077      Links: 3
Access: (0777/lrwxrwxrwx)  Uid: ( 1000/  kparal)   Gid: ( 1000/  kparal)
Access: 2019-02-14 22:40:13.270993900 +0100
Modify: 2018-09-15 09:28:56.687095900 +0200
Change: 2018-12-14 21:52:10.685553700 +0100
Birth: -

Fortunately, there’s a ntfs-3g-system-compression plugin that allows you to read those files:

$ ls -l Windows/notepad.exe 
-r-xr-xr-x 3 kparal kparal 254464 Sep 15 09:28 Windows/notepad.exe

The new package is now proposed as an update in Bodhi, but in a week or so you should be able to install it with a simple:

$ sudo dnf install ntfs-3g-system-compression

Enjoy.

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Source: Kparal's Fedora Blog

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