# NTFS is now working on Windows 10 Mobile (Plus Tutorial on how to symbolic link)



## mrchezco1995 (Dec 18, 2015)

Just ordered a brand new 32GB Sandisk Ultra SD Card for my Lumia 535 since my 2 year old Sandisk Ultra 16GB is already dead (you served me well...). 

I already posted here almost like 4 months ago about a question on how can I enable NTFS support on Windows 10 Mobile, but since anyone doesn't even know the answer and yes the current build of 10 Mobile on that time I posted it doesn't even support external NTFS support just yet...  

Okay back to the topic, now I got my new sdcard, I just wonder if the current build my Lumia is running (10586.11, yes I haven't upgraded to 10586.36 just yet, will do that later) supports external NTFS storage support (Continuum and OTG features on the Lumia 950/XL needs it). So I decided to format my sdcard to NTFS, plug it in to my Lumia 535 with my fingers crossed and HOLY CRAP IT WORKS  !!! Read/Write works too on NTFS which is great!  

NTFS features works too, like mklink (symbolic link for Windows), which can be quite useful once Project Astoria comes back to future builds of 10 Mobile or other hacks possible with symlinks... 

Anyways, here's an example on how to mklink the documents folder on C:\ to your sdcard (D:\ )


On Your PC, create directories of C:\Data\Users\Public\Documents\TestFolder




On your sdcard, create a documents folder there, but don't create a "TestFolder" folder
After that, run command prompt as administrator
Now type in "mklink /j D:\Documents\TestFolder C:\Data\Users\Public\Documents\TestFolder" without quotes (change D: with your sdcard's drive letter on your PC)



You should see a "TestFolder" shortcut on your sdcard, but it's not really a shortcut...



Plug your sdcard back to your Lumia
To test if Symbolic Link works, create a random file on \Documents\TestFolder folder on your phone's C:\ drive, then see if that file exists on your sdcard\Documents\TestFolder\ too... If it does exists even you didn't create that file on your sdcard, symlink works! 







I haven't tried reversing the junction just yet thou (MTP doesn't allow it, maybe root access can... Darn we can do some awesome hacks with reversed junction XD )

And oh yeah, there's some sort of a weird bug with NTFS when installing apps to sdcard with NTFS... It just throws 0x80073cf6... Not sure if it's just me or what... Will do a hard reset on my Lumia after installing 10586.36 and gonna update this thread if I found anything interesting after the update... Stay tuned  




Sent from Ponyville


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## djamol (Dec 18, 2015)

Nice research


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## ap3rus (Dec 19, 2015)

Just a comment on terminology. mklink /j creates a directory junction, not a symbolic link, there are differences between these two. A directory junction is similar in behavior to a symbolic link of directory, however directory junction cannot point to network locations because of the way it is implemented (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365006).

Anyway, that's great that NTFS is supported, finally Windows 10 Mobile is becoming a grown OS


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## DLS123 (Dec 19, 2015)

Junction doesn't help much but with symbolic links things get interesting. 
I managed to write files in protected folders on my Lumia 950 which is impossible to gain full FS access to ATM. 
I created on NTFS formatted SD card a symbolic link to C:\Data\USERS\DefApps\APPDATA\ROAMING\MICROSOFT\Network\Connections\Pbk, and with permissions editing of that link (disabling inherited permissions, setting explicit permissions for everyone and changing owner to everyone) I managed to achieve write access to that folder and write a rasphone.pbk configured for my VPN connection. Now I have working VPN on WP10 again 
Deleting and overwriting files in that folder doesn't work unless I make symbolic links  (with permissions edited the same as above) for each file I want to delete.

Other than this, NTFS is pretty useless on SD card at the moment. Apps can't be installed to it, and if pictures/video storage is set to SD, camera apps will not see the storage and will complain storage is full.


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## augustinionut (Dec 19, 2015)

At least a NTFS card can be used to write acces phone system.  .  Someone can write a list of symbolic link to use on a ntfs formated card?  Probably to get acces to windows/packages/oemsettings.reg, change him with a interopunlocked one and then hardreset phone to gain interopcapability?


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## mrchezco1995 (Dec 20, 2015)

DLS123 said:


> Other than this, NTFS is pretty useless on SD card at the moment. Apps can't be installed to it, and if pictures/video storage is set to SD, camera apps will not see the storage and will complain storage is full.

Click to collapse



Did a factory reset after upgrading to 10586.36, still the same error code throws for installing and/or moving apps to SD with NTFS but camera works fine for me... 

Anyways, have you tried symlinking any file to C:\Windows and see if read/write actually works? 



augustinionut said:


> At least a NTFS card can be used to write acces phone system.  .  Someone can write a list of symbolic link to use on a ntfs formated card?  Probably to get acces to windows/packages/oemsettings.reg, change him with a interopunlocked one and then hardreset phone to gain interopcapability?

Click to collapse



Hmmm... Might actually gonna do that soon, but for now I formatted my card back to FAT32 because of some storage problems lol! 




Sent from Ponyville


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## DLS123 (Dec 20, 2015)

mrchezco1995 said:


> Anyways, have you tried symlinking any file to C:\Windows and see if read/write actually works?

Click to collapse



Not yet. My goal was just to have working VPN and I stopped there once I had it. But I will try it as soon as I find a spare SD card I can play with.


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## snickler (Dec 21, 2015)

Great Job guys! Looks like I'll have something fun to play around with .


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## Hulzer (Jan 12, 2016)

How did you edit the rasphone file?


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## DLS123 (Jan 15, 2016)

Hulzer said:


> How did you edit the rasphone file?

Click to collapse



With notepad on a PC. It's just a text file.


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## Hulzer (Jan 15, 2016)

Yes, but I can't copy it from the phone or write it back. Any hint? Thanks


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## Hulzer (Jan 31, 2016)

@DLS123 Could you please go in detail how you got read/write access? I can see the rasphone file but can't copy or write.


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## Hulzer (Feb 2, 2016)

Got it!
I had to delete VPN connections on the phone before I could copy the modified file.

Thanks.


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