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Can I install Ubuntu on a partition formatted as NTFS, instead of EXT4?

After installing Ubuntu 11.10 using ext4, I keep on getting disk errors at boot up. But on this same harddrive, I have Windows 7, and I don't get these errors. So I wanted to try NTFS, instead of EXT4, and see if it makes any difference.

The harddrive is about 5 years old. So if it is failing, I would think it would be giving trouble in Windows just as well.

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  • What sort of errors are you getting?
    – Kelley
    Apr 20, 2012 at 19:30

2 Answers 2

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Make a backup of all your valuable files Don't say I didn't warn you. If your disk is acting suspiciously ... better safe than sorry. As a matter of fact, you should backup your files on a regular basis anyway ...

Don't use NTFS as your filesystem to install Linux on, NTFS support is ... suboptimal. This is caused by the fact that NTFS support is all about reverse engineering as there is no documentation publicly available.

Ext4 is proven technology, it should work just fine. What errors are you getting? Try badblocks -v /dev/sdan where /dev/sdan should be replaced with the device you see when you enter df -h / | cut -d' ' -f1 | grep dev or /dev/sda when you feel lucky.

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In short, no. If there is something wrong with the disk, you need to address that instead. Open the disk utility and check the SMART status of the drive, and run the long self test.

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