[SOLVED] NTFS Disk Mount Issues on Linux on a "Dual-Booted" Computer.

Good day, Fellas!

Background: I made an installation of Windows Server 2012 on an NTFS partition I originally allocated from an existing Ubuntu Linux 13.10 disk (dual-booting means getting a computer host 2 Operating Systems).
Upon accessing the NTFS disk from  the Ubuntu Linux OS I had an error message that implied that the disk has an unclean file system or is in an unsafe state.Below is the error thrown when the host Ubuntu Linux OS attempts to mount the NTFS partition.

Fig.1  Error encountered whiles accessing NTFS partition

Cause: This is caused by a recent tweak of the Microsoft OS(Windows 8, Windows Server 2012) simply called Fast-Startup ( which involved the saving of device(RAM, CPU, Disk) boot metadata(e.g. registry boot parameters) on files during shutdown, to be accessed at the next startup to shorten boot-time) which puts a "lock" on the NTFS partitioning hence posing a difficulty when opening disk.

Solution: 

FROM WINDOWS:  From your windows OS environment,  access the Power Options under control panel. Move down to the shutdown settings panel where you can disable the Fast-Startup by dis-selecting the "Turn on Fast startup".

FROM LINUX: We would use the software package called ntfs-3g which has a powerful binary called ntfsfix. Lets first install the package using the super-user priviledge and command below.

# sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g

Lets next confirm if the installation has been successful by checking the man pages(i.e. utility  manual pages) for ntfsfix 

# man ntfsfix

Fig.2  NTFSFIX utility manual on Linux.

Now, lets proceed to run the utility to fix the issue snapped above by simply :) running

# sudo ntfsfix /dev/sda3

Where sda3 is the ntfs partition of the disk that you have difficulties opening.

Fig.3  NTFSFIX utility run  on Linux without errors.

Verify if the partition is accessible - as I have done below.

Fig.4  Partition is now fully accessible.


Issue solved, hopefully :)