Solve Windows Partition Mount Problem In Ubuntu Dual Boot

The NTFS partition is in an unsafe state error in Ubuntu

I dual boot Ubuntu 16.04 with Windows 10. After upgrading to Windows 10, I often see an error “The NTFS partition is in an unsafe state. Please resume and shutdown Windows fully” when I try to mount the NTFS partitions in Ubuntu. The full text of error is as following:

 

Read the error again. Just the second line which reads: Error mounting /dev/sdXY….

Note the /dev/sdXY thing. XY should be replaced with the error you see in your system. Now open terminal and use the following command:

sudo ntfsfix /dev/sd??

 now you can access your windows partition.

reason for this problem

Microsoft introduced a new feature in Windows 8 and 10 to reduce the boot time in otherwise slow Windows OS. This feature is called Fast Startup. In normal shut down process, power is removed from all components such as CPU, RAM, CD-Rom and hard disks. But in fast start up, Windows 8 saves some system information such as caching the registry etc to a file during shutdown. Part of the metadata about the state of all mounted partitions at the time of But in fast start up, Windows 8 saves some system information such as caching the registry etc to a file during shutdown. Part of the metadata about the state of all mounted partitions at the time of turn-off, is among these system information. This reduces the boot time of the Windows 8 but it creates the trouble for Ubuntu.

Since the information about the NTFS partition is stored in Windows 8, this prevents Ubuntu to mount them as mounting them in Linux will alter the metadata of the partitions. This is why it is in protected mode and you cannot mount it without being root.

Permanent Solution: Disable Fast Startup in Windows 8 and Windows 10

Temporary solution of this problem will be to boot in to Windows and restart it. Restarting is different from shutdown and it should release the partition metadata from the stored system information. But this will only be a temporary solution because when you use Windows 8 or 10 next time, you’ll face the same problem again.

Go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Power Options > System Setting > Choose what the power buttons do and uncheck the Turn on fast startup box.