Disk Utility Redesign & NTFS

[ConnYoungy]

Has anyone else noticed this monumental problem with the new Disk Utility? It doesn't recognise my NTFS drives whatsoever, or allow me to format a (for example) Fat32 drive to NTFS like the previous version did.

It also doesn't recognise my BootCamp partition (even though finder does by default).

This really baffles me since BootCamp is an Apple supported feature and by including it Apple pretty much say they're cool with NTFS partitions, since it's what Windows runs on. How are we supposed to format our drives now? Or remove a Windows partition? Since the BootCamp 'remove windows' option rarely ever works for me.

 

[leman]

My disk utility has no problem recognising NTFS volumes.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Has anyone else noticed this monumental problem with the new Disk Utility? It doesn't recognise my NTFS drives whatsoever, or allow me to format a (for example) Fat32 drive to NTFS like the previous version did.

The previous version of OS X/Disk Utility did not support NTFS based formatting without a third party NTFS driver.

The builtin read-only NTFS driver is functioning just fine for me.

My guess if you've had something like Paragon NTFS working in the past and then updated to El Capitan. Paragon stopped working so you can't format, AND its still blocking the builtin read-only NTFS driver from loading.

 

[Shirasaki]

I have noticed this. Really annoying. The only thing I would try to do is using terminal to try modifying partition table, which is highly risky and dangerous.

Yosemite disk utility modification may cause some problems. I tried doing it but failed.

 

[leman]

My guess if you've had something like Paragon NTFS working in the past and then updated to El Capitan. Paragon stopped working so you can't format, AND its still blocking the builtin read-only NTFS driver from loading.

If this is indeed the case, Paragon users should start to be very pissed of. Making custom kext compatible with 10.11 should literally take no longer than few minutes. I can't believe Paragon still haven't done it.

 

[im_to_hyper]

ITS A BETA. ITS NOT FINAL SOFTWARE. THINGS WILL BE BROKEN.

Software companies need time to test. Just because El Capitan is in beta, you expect every software company to have a fix for every bug for every build just for you?

NO THEY WONT.

Use a stable OS if you don't want things breaking.

 

[Shirasaki]

If this is indeed the case, Paragon users should start to be very pissed of. Making custom kext compatible with 10.11 should literally take no longer than few minutes. I can't believe Paragon still haven't done it.

In fact, paragon has now developed a preview version of this in order to let this driver works properly under El Capitan without the need to mess up sip.
I m testing this preview and it works without disabling sop prior installation.

 

[Shirasaki]

ITS A BETA. ITS NOT FINAL SOFTWARE. THINGS WILL BE BROKEN.

Software companies need time to test. Just because El Capitan is in beta, you expect every software company to have a fix for every bug for every build just for you?

NO THEY WONT.

Use a stable OS if you don't want things breaking.

ITS A BETA. ITS NOT FINAL SOFTWARE. THINGS WILL BE BROKEN.

Software companies need time to test. Just because El Capitan is in beta, you expect every software company to have a fix for every bug for every build just for you?

NO THEY WONT.

Use a stable OS if you don't want things breaking.

In fact some app developers have completed preliminary support for iOS 9 beta.

And, I believe most of members realise this is a prerelease software, and bugs is inevitable.

So there is no need in here to say "you use beta software so you should not expect software developers to update their software for beta". What is more practical is: as long as developers aware this beta OS software, they should try to dig into it to see if their apps are still compatible with next release.

 

[im_to_hyper]

Yes, there is a need to say it, @Shirasaki: when members like @leman says users should be "pissed" at paragon - that's unwarranted.

Users should understand they are using beta software, and reach out to Paragon, or look at their website such as you have to see if they have a beta program in which they can participate, rather than being arbitrarily "pissed" for no reason

If this is indeed the case, Paragon users should start to be very pissed of. Making custom kext compatible with 10.11 should literally take no longer than few minutes. I can't believe Paragon still haven't done it.

In fact some app developers have completed preliminary support for iOS 9 beta.

And, I believe most of members realise this is a prerelease software, and bugs is inevitable.

So there is no need in here to say "you use beta software so you should not expect software developers to update their software for beta". What is more practical is: as long as developers aware this beta OS software, they should try to dig into it to see if their apps are still compatible with next release.

 

[leman]

Yes, there is a need to say it, @Shirasaki: when members like @leman says users should be "pissed" at paragon - that's unwarranted.

Users should understand they are using beta software, and reach out to Paragon, or look at their website such as you have to see if they have a beta program in which they can participate, rather than being arbitrarily "pissed" for no reason

There is a particular reason why I wrote what I wrote. Of course, my post was unwarranted, because I was unaware that Paragon has fixed this problem by the time I wrote it. Anyway, here are the facts:

1. Paragon was already disregarding official Apple documentation on where to install their kernel module. Besides, Apple has clearly communicated that it will lock down the system-only module location as early as 2013. I will admit though that the documentation is not 100% clear, as there are some historical artefacts in it.
2. The issue could be fixed by changing the install prefix of (AFAIK) a single file. This is literally 5 minutes of work. Lets make it 20 minutes with identifying the issue, changing the installer and testing.
3. The El Capitan developer beta has been available for months.
4. Many of Paragon's customers are using 10.11 DB or PB.

Given all this, I'd expect the developer to release a fix very quickly. There is just no excuse not to. As developers, we have certain commitment to our customers — especially if the problem is caused by what I would argue is our own lack of foresight — even though its legally beta, no support, bla bla bla. It has something to do with respect and decency. I am glad that Paragon responded correctly and released a version where this issue was resolved.

 

[ConnYoungy]

Getting back to the original topic...

What seems bizarre to me is that Apple give you the tools to install Windows (thereby creating an NTFS partition in the process) yet don't give you the option to remove that partition in disk utility?

Disk Utility should be able to see NTFS partitions with or without Paragon, because finder can see them with or without it.

Also where has the option to restore a disk image gone??

 

[leman]

What seems bizarre to me is that Apple give you the tools to install Windows (thereby creating an NTFS partition in the process) yet don't give you the option to remove that partition in disk utility?

Disk Utility should be able to see NTFS partitions with or without Paragon, because finder can see them with or without it.

Your installation must be bugged. My Disk Utility can see NTFS partitions and offers the option to remove them. Obviously I didn't try it, as I don't want to lose my Bootcamp install

Also where has the option to restore a disk image gone??

Its in the menu

 

[chucker23n1]

What seems bizarre to me is that Apple give you the tools to install Windows (thereby creating an NTFS partition in the process)

Technically, they just provide Windows with some blank space; the NTFS partition then gets created by Windows, not OS X.

 

[Shirasaki]

Your installation must be bugged. My Disk Utility can see NTFS partitions and offers the option to remove them. Obviously I didn't try it, as I don't want to lose my Bootcamp install



Its in the menu

Yosemite disk utility does can manage boot camp partition, at least you can delete that partition.

El Capitan disk utility can no longer modify partitions unrecognised locally.

 

[Shirasaki]

Technically, they just provide Windows with some blank space; the NTFS partition then gets created by Windows, not OS X.

They simply format that partition as FAT32 partition. Windows install would format it again using ntfs.

 

[leman]

Yosemite disk utility does can manage boot camp partition, at least you can delete that partition.

El Capitan disk utility can no longer modify partitions unrecognised locally.

As I have written before, I can delete my NTFS partition with the 10.11 Disk Utility. I have no idea why this does not work for you.

 

[DeltaMac]

If you are trying to delete a boot camp partition (whether or not it may be NTFS is immaterial), then safest practice has always been to use the Boot Camp Assistant to do that.

I have also experienced, as Shirasaki points out, that the 10.11 Disk Utility may not "see" the NTFS partition at all. That may be related to how it was originally created, I don't know, but I have seen it a couple of times. You can't delete a partition when Disk Utility doesn't see it. In my experience, I had a mixed drive, with both OS X Extended, and NTFS partitions. Disk Utility did NOT show the NTFS partition.
I had to reformat the drive completely.

 

[Shirasaki]

If you are trying to delete a boot camp partition (whether or not it may be NTFS is immaterial), then safest practice has always been to use the Boot Camp Assistant to do that.

I have also experienced, as Shirasaki points out, that the 10.11 Disk Utility may not "see" the NTFS partition at all. That may be related to how it was originally created, I don't know, but I have seen it a couple of times. You can't delete a partition when Disk Utility doesn't see it. In my experience, I had a mixed drive, with both OS X Extended, and NTFS partitions. Disk Utility did NOT show the NTFS partition.
I had to reformat the drive completely.

As I realise using boot camp assistant is the theoretically safest way. I use this because NOW this way is no longer available. I can count this on beta software, but this bug is serious.

Currently I can only backup mac partition, and format whole disk, and restore from backup, to wipe out boot camp partition. Really annoying.

 

[chrfr]

As I realise using boot camp assistant is the theoretically safest way. I use this because NOW this way is no longer available. I can count this on beta software, but this bug is serious.

Currently I can only backup mac partition, and format whole disk, and restore from backup, to wipe out boot camp partition. Really annoying.

You had a 3rd party NTFS driver installed at some point if you were able to write to NTFS disks. You need to make sure that it is fully uninstalled so that the Apple read-only NTFS support will work.

 

[ConnYoungy]

Your installation must be bugged. My Disk Utility can see NTFS partitions and offers the option to remove them. Obviously I didn't try it, as I don't want to lose my Bootcamp install

Its in the menu

Mounted DMG or ISO files don't show for me in the ElCap disk utility, so there's no way to restore those to a drive like before

Technically, they just provide Windows with some blank space; the NTFS partition then gets created by Windows, not OS X.

They don't just provide blank space - the Boot Camp installer specifically mentions Windows, not to mention downloads the drivers for Windows. By giving us a specific installer for Windows, they're acknowledging that there will be an NTFS partition on the main hard drive, ergo there should also be (as there was before El Cap) default support for viewing and removing NTFS partitions. Paragon only adds write support.

If you are trying to delete a boot camp partition (whether or not it may be NTFS is immaterial), then safest practice has always been to use the Boot Camp Assistant to do that.

Often in my experience at least, Boot Camp Assistant fails to remove the partition and I've always had to do it via disk utility

 

[Planey28]

They don't just provide blank space - the Boot Camp installer specifically mentions Windows, not to mention downloads the drivers for Windows. By giving us a specific installer for Windows, they're acknowledging that there will be an NTFS partition on the main hard drive, ergo there should also be (as there was before El Cap) default support for viewing and removing NTFS partitions. Paragon only adds write support.

OS X doesn't create the NTFS formatted partition though, as others have said it only creates a FAT32 partition, the user has to reformat the bootcamp partition to NTFS in the Windows installer. OS X has never had the ability to natively format partitions as NTFS.

If NTFS drives don't show up in there at all then its likely a bug, the software is after all pre-release and Disk Utility is likely incomplete at this point.

 

[Shirasaki]

You had a 3rd party NTFS driver installed at some point if you were able to write to NTFS disks. You need to make sure that it is fully uninstalled so that the Apple read-only NTFS support will work.

However in Yosemite, I can still view and delete ntfs partition. I don't need to specially remove third party driver to enable that feature.
Therefore I suspect El Capitan changes policy and behaviour of disk utility for those partitions they cannot manage.

 

[chrfr]

However in Yosemite, I can still view and delete ntfs partition. I don't need to specially remove third party driver to enable that feature.
Therefore I suspect El Capitan changes policy and behaviour of disk utility for those partitions they cannot manage.

This just means that your 3rd party driver doesn't work in 10.11. You either need to update it or uninstall the remains of what isn't working.

 

[Shirasaki]

This just means that your 3rd party driver doesn't work in 10.11. You either need to update it or uninstall the remains of what isn't working.

However, even under recovery partition, or even, El Capitan install drive, ntfs partition is still invisible, in disk utility. This should not be treated as a third party driver issue.

I have faith that Apple is purposely removing such support in future versions of OS X.

 

[chucker23n1]

They simply format that partition as FAT32 partition. Windows install would format it again using ntfs.

Yeah, you appear to be correct — the support page specifically says there's a "BOOTCAMP" partition you're supposed to have Windows delete and reformat.