How to mount external Windows NTFS volume on Mac?

After a repair task with disk utility I can't mount my external hard drive on my mac. I have tried to mount it on terminal

mount /dev/disk1s1

but I receive this eror

mount: /dev/disk1s1: unknown special file or file system.

I have tried to verify the volume

diskutil verifyVolume disk1s1

and I receive this error

Error starting file system verification for disk2s1 OneTouch4: Invalid request (-69886)

What I can do?

This is the result of diskutil list

/dev/disk0 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.3 GB disk0 1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1 2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 499.4 GB disk0s2 3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3
/dev/disk1 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: FDisk_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk1 1: Windows_NTFS OneTouch4 500.1 GB disk1s1

3

6 Answers

If you need access to your drive, there is commercial alternatives such as Paragon NTFS for Mac, or Tuxera NTFS for Mac.

I don't have much experience with either, but I believe them to be acceptable solutions.

If however, you feel in the experimental mood, there is unofficial NTFS support in macOS. However, no guarantee is provided.

In the recent macOS, this command should work:

diskutil mount disk1s1

Where disk1s1 is the disk and partition number from diskutil list.

The volume will mount in read-only.

For the write access support, read: recommendations for reading and writing NTFS from macOS.

1

You don't need external program to mount NTFS volume, follow these steps to mount NTFS external disk on macOS. This is tested and working on macOS Mojave-

sudo mkdir /Volumes/MyNTFS
sudo mount -t ntfs -o rw <Disk Identifier> /Volumes/MyNTFS

To get disk identifier, you can run diskutil list. For example, if below is the output-

/dev/disk2 (external, physical): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *2.0 TB disk2 1: Microsoft Basic Data MyNTFS 2.0 TB disk2s1

Then you can run following command to mount-

sudo mount -t ntfs -o rw /dev/disk2 /Volumes/MyNTFS

It is NTFS, you cannot mount it. It must be Mac OS Journaled or FAT32.

4

You can mount any NTFS disk, natively. You simply can't write to it without additional 3rd party software. If you can't see the drive at all, or it won't mount, the drive is most likely beginning to fail/failing/failed.

For those who are already using ntfs for mac by Paragon, and have faced the famous "Unable to mount" error,

try executing -

sudo kextunload /Library/Extensions/ufsd_NTFS.kext // unloads driver
sudo kextload /Library/Extensions/ufsd_NTFS.kext // reloads it

This is what worked for me.

However, if the issue persits, here's an article that might help -

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