Can I mount an external NTFS drive as writable when running the install DVD? I have an old Macbook Pro on which I'd like to try Mavericks. Before doing so I want to make a back-up of my current Mac OS X install (10.6.8).

I will use the disk utility option (and not the time machine option), as outlined here, since I already have a 1TB NTFS disk, that I use for other back-ups as well. However, NTFS is mounted read-only, by default. Since I don't feel like creating a FAT partition on this disk, nor feel like purchasing another HDD (because 1TB is more than enough for my back-up needs) I want to mount the disk writable.

Now, I know I should be able to mount NTFS drives by tinkering with /etc/fstab. However, I assume that /etc/fstab will not be read when booting from the install disk. Is that correct?

If so, my question is: can I mount an external NTFS drive as writable when running the install DVD?
I figured it out:

I opened a terminal window and executed mount_ntfs similar to this:

mount_ntfs -s -o rw /dev/diskXsY /Volumes/SomeMountDirectory


where:


-o rw is the crucial part and means use the readwrite option;
-s means mount case sensitive;
/dev/diskXsY represents the actual partition to mount (in my case /dev/disk8s5);
/Volumes/SomeMountDirectory represents the mount point.