disk image, error code -43, and permission problem.

[personman]

I am having some problems so I'll break them down in order.

first I am on a MacBook Pro OS X 10.6. Both of the external drives I am using are formatted ntfs-3g. If other info is needed I will provide.

my first problem was that I created a disk image as a backup through disk utility onto an external drive with ntfs formatting (i use ntfs-3g). I reinstalled my OS and put ntfs-3g back on, then opened disk utility. After getting the message about using "scan for restore" I ran it and got this message "unable to scan disk image unknown error (internal error)".

After that I drug the image to my desktop and tried to mount it to just pull some backup files off. I got another error saying the image could not be mounted or verified. I tried using disk warrior to repair the image and all goes well and i can preview the image and even pull files out of disk warrior's preview. However, I cannot replace the image's directory (which is what disk warrior rebuilt) because the disk is locked. I tried the "get info" approach and changing permissions via terminal as well as entering single-user mode and adjusting permissions. I still get the message about the disk being locked.

While I was transferring some of the restored files i can get to i came across this message "the operation can't be completed because one or more required items can't be found. (error code -43)". I thought it was because I was in disk warrior's preview but found out that the error comes up when transferring files from my MAC HD to another external that is using ntfs-3g.

Any help resolving any of these problems would be much appreciated. I have looked through many forums and found instances of the error code -43 but not in the same way I am getting it. Sorry for the long post.

[personman]

Created 3 partitions on an externsl drive using ntfs-3g and apple partition. Reinstalled OS X on the MacBook Pro.

I then used used SuperDuper! to force an image compy onto the external and made it a bootable volume. Then I transfered the back up image to the external OS X and used SuperDuper! to for the image to copy back to the MacBook Pro.

I then used Onyx to rebuild all permissions.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Sounds like it could be a problem with storing data on NTFS-formatted drives.

The ntfs-3g extensions are a boon for writing and reading to and from NTFS-formatted drives, but I would not trust any critical data or backups to an NTFS drive while working on them from a Mac. The ntfs-3g drivers are not officially sanctioned drivers for the NTFS file system. The NTFS file system is proprietary Microsoft code that has not been released to the public. Any and all drivers that enable read/write abilities to NTFS drives are drivers that have employed "reverse engineering," basically. In other words, they're "hacks" meant to allow reading and writing on NTFS-formatted drives, bypassing Microsoft's official NTFS specification.

I highly suspect your file problems stem from the fact that the drives are in NTFS format and nothing (other than the Windows operating system) is 100% compatible with the full NTFS specification.