Published by Arif Isnaeni on 20 Nov 2009
Solving “Could not mount” NTFS Partition from Ubuntu
I usuallly use my laptop without its battery, only use the adaptor, I want to prolong my battery life time, but when I on training (on the class), so many mistakes happened. I could not make sure that the cable connector (adaptor) is connected properly, so many times my computer (windows XP, NTFS partition) was not shut down properly, finally I am on a trouble. Windows startup (booting ) with a blue screen, I got a love mesage from my beloved computer (….hu… hu….
….), with a message:
A problem has detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer …
then I tried to restart so many times in “normal”, “last best configuration”, “safe mode”, “safe mode on command prompt”, but I got nothing. my first concern is back up all files on my windows XP partition (NTFS). as usual I use my linux ubuntu as a way to access my windows partition. but when I use “ntfs-3g” and “ntfs-config”and “partition editor (gparted)” or “terminal”.. . to mount my NTFS partition, I got a remarks:
Could not mount /dev/sda1 on /media/SQ003654
$LogFile indicates unclean shutdown (0, 1)
Failed to mount ‘/dev/sda1′: Operation not supported
Mount is denied because NTFS is marked to be in use. Choose one action:
Choice 1: If you have Windows then disconnect the external devices by
clicking on the ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ icon in the Windows
taskbar then shutdown Windows cleanly.
Choice 2: If you don’t have Windows then you can use the ‘force’ option for
your own responsibility. For example type on the command line:
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /media/SQ003654 -o force
Or add the option to the relevant row in the /etc/fstab file:
/dev/sda1 /media/SQ003654 ntfs-3g force 0 0
Here is the picture:

so what shoud I do??…….thanksfully I got the solution from this blog:
- Open Applications → Accessories → Terminal
- Type sudo su
- make a new director at /mnt with a command line mkdir /mnt/repair
- Force mount by using this command:
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/repair -o force
renark:
/dev/sda1 is my broken NTFS partition, see yours
- open your NTFS Partition from file browser, if you still had this problem follow next step.
- Umount command umount /mnt/repair
- try once more to open your NTFS partiton
- back up file on NTFS… good luck…









