"No such file or directory" trying to write NTFS

I have booted from an LUbuntu 18.04 Live USB. I am trying to access the files on my hard drive (Windows 10, NTFS). By default they are mounted read only, so I remounted it read-write with no errors. (This is with the ntfs-3g driver in user space.) But when I try to write to files on the drive, I always get this error:

"No such file or directory"

For instance, if I chdir to my home directory on the drive and run "echo > tmp.txt" I get the error:

"bash: tmp.txt: No such file or directory"

If I try to make a copy of a file in the File Manager, I get this error:

file1.txt: Error opening file “/media/lubuntu/Windows8_OS/Users/michael/Downloads/file1.txt”: No such file or directory

I tried running ntfs-fix, but it found no issues.

Why can't I write to my drive?

Solution 1:

Instead of trying to remount the read-only partition, unmount the partition and mount it in a separate step. First the unmount (replace the directory as needed with wherever your Windows drive is mounted):

sudo umount /media/lubuntu/Windows8_OS

Next run ntfsfix (sudo apt install ntfs-3g if the command is not found) just in case the drive wasn't unmounted properly. This could happen, for instance, if you properly shut down but then aborted a Windows start due to the BIOS running away before you could select your USB media to boot from.

sudo ntfsfix /dev/sda4

The above assumes the NTFS file system is at /dev/sda4. Replace as needed with your device (lsblk may be helpful to determine where it is).

Now mount it:

sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda4 /mnt

Don't forget to unmount it when you are done:

sudo umount /mnt