Ubuntu :: External Hard Disk /Hard Drive Mounts As Read Only (Suddenly)?
Jan 17, 2011
I recently bought 320 GB Trancend external hard disk and working fine days back.Earlier i could copy from and to the hard disk with out any issue. I dont know what happened after that now i am not able to write any files in to the external hard disk. This is not NTFS formatted device. here is some of the out put from terminal.
Code:
sundar@sundar-sundar:~$ fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
Trying to go through some old hard drives I'd saved from a Mac we tossed years ago. Using a Sabrent USB adapter (USB-DSC9) I connected it to the Debian box and it mounts as /media. Here's the weird thing: although I can read all the random stuff, the directory with all my actual documents shows up as "you do not have the permissions necessary to view the contents". When I try to fix this with chmod, it tells me that the drive is read-only. Grr.
How do I mount the drive so that it's not read-only?
I have a computer with Ubuntu 10.04, with few disk space. For downloading some torrents, I've connected a USB hardrive, ext4 formated. But this idea wasn't a solution, because the drive keeps getting read-only permission... Is there any way of prevent this to happen?
I was in the process of backing up data from my hard drive to an external usb drive when the drive suddenly became read only. Does anyone know how I can make it read/write again? I am using Debian Lenny and the drive is ntfs formatted. I have another ntfs formatted usb drive that is not effected in this way.
I am using Thunar and XFCE4. I started with the minimal install CD, so this is not exactly Xubuntu as I do not have Xubuntu-desktop package installed. I installed psydm to be able to easily edit and control mounting, fstab etc... Anyways, I can't figure out how to write to this disk. I have amended the Thunar icon to read "gksudo Thunar" as its command. It opens Thunar with whatever elevated rights that would come along with the command. I still can't write to the disk. If I change the permissions for the disk under the properties tab to be "read&write" for the user group, It asks me about something to be done retroactively to files. No matter whether I choose yes or no here, it still does not change the disk to a writable disk.
No love and no ideas. Can you help me write to this disk ? I run as a user called "user" so maybe I should not have made Thunar open as "gksudo" ?
so here's my issue and what I think is causing it right now. I have a 1TB external usb hard drive that has worked perfectly, but recently I set it up a mount point for it in fstab so that I could create a SMB share on the drive so I could stream videos and pictures to my TV through my Wii using WiiMC. This now works perfectly, but now the hard drive has been set into read-only mode. When I use sudo to try to chmod the drive or the folders on it, it does nothing. When I right-click on the drive and check the permissions tab, it says the owner is root and all the options are greyed out.
I've read through several posts on similar topics to this, but none of them have been very helpful as they suggest using command line tools that I don't know how to use, so I'm hoping someone here can give me concise, step by step instructions of what to type in, or what settings to change in fstab to solve my little problem so I can start copying stuff back onto my drive. I'm running Ubuntu 10.10 and the filesystem on the external drive is FAT32. Here's some more info you might need:
I administer a remote server via SSH that runs CentOS 5.5. I have been unsuccessful in all my attempts to write to two different external USB hard drives with a single ext3 partition when logged in as root.
When attempting to create a "test" directory I get one of two messages:
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Both drives *appear* to have filesystem issues. When I run an fsck on either drive, I get:
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Keep in mind this is a newly-formatted, empty drive.
Not putting stock in the odds that I've had two hard drives (different sizes and brands) with the exact same hardware problem, I'm going to assume this is a software issue, although maybe it isn't. Hence, my post in "Linux - General". I've heard talk elsewhere of controller (chipset) issues coming into play. Is this valid?
Okay, here's the information you'll need to make a diagnosis....
Here's the output of a "df -h" command:
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Here's the contents of my /etc/fstab:
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Here's the output of "cat /etc/mtab":
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Here's the output of a mount command:
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Here's the output of fdisk on the device in question:
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The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 48641.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024, and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Command (m for help):
I've got someone with access to the box if necessary. But it might take days to implement solutions since this isn't his full-time job. Remote solutions are, therefore, preferable.
I had a dual boot (windows 7 + debian), both of them installed in my internal hard disk, with the GRUB in it. I have recently installed a second linux distro (mint), but I put it in an external hard disk. Now the GRUB allows me to boot any of the three operating systems, but I need the external disk to do it. It seems that after the mint installation the GRUB is now working from the external disk (if the external disk is not connected, the machine does not boot.) �Is there a way to change the location of the GRUB, to the internal hard disk of my laptop?
I got a dell inspiron 1501 laptop with a 80Gb sata drive what is the best solution to add data storage space for someone that love to have multiples operating systems at hand Note: I use mostly linux so I won't need to change my laptop for many years maybe ...
I want to install Ubuntu onto a partition on my external hard drive, but my CD burner is broken so I can't just boot up with a live CD and do it that way. So can I install Ubuntu onto my external hard drive with the Startup Disk Creator that comes installed on Ubuntu? And if not is there another way I can do this?
I have got a hold of a extra hdd along with a hdd enclosure. I have tried looking for information on how to install linux on to one but haven't been completely successful on my search. So I turn to all of you. I was also wondering if its possible to have it were I can use it on multiple computers so I can use it for computer repair.
a friend of mine just given me an old 2004 IBM NetVista 8305 desktop and suggested to use Linux Ubuntu which is something new to me. So i installed it via USB memory stick & it works. After installation of the OS I am impressed with functionality & speed. when i conect the external hard drive via usb it doesn't show & i tried my usb flash disc it showed the same problem. I tried both disk in my laptop (Windows XP) & it works.
I have a laptop with only 30GB storage and I want to install Lubuntu in virtual box but Lubuntu needs 5GB of storage space which i dont have. Could i use an external 160GB hard drive to act as the hard drive for the virtual machine without affecting the files that are already on the external hard drive
I have one hard disk (call her HDA) that contains nothing but a single ext4 partition containing a backup of all my important data. I did a clean install of 10.10 on my primary hard disk (call her HDB) and from there proceeded to the 11.04 upgrade. In 10.10, I was able to read HDA just fine. However after the upgrade, I can no longer mount this drive.
When mounting from file browser: Code: Error mounting: mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda, missing codepage or helper program, or other error In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so
The end of dmesg said the following: Code: dmesg | tail [49.853308] wlan0: associated [50.084874] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready [52.859533] Intel AES-NI instructions are not detected. [52.890955] padlock_aes: VIA PadLock not detected. [60.710006] wlan0: no IPv6 routers present [82.130904] EXT4-fs (sda): bad geometry: block count 122096646 exceeds size of device (122096381 blocks) ..... [96.010858] EXT4-fs (sda): bad geometry: block count 122096646 exceeds size of device (122096381 blocks) [107.791812] EXT4-fs (sda): bad geometry: block count 122096646 exceeds size of device (122096381 blocks) [322.758948] EXT4-fs (sda): bad geometry: block count 122096646 exceeds size of device (122096381 blocks) [516.932403] EXT4-fs (sda): bad geometry: block count 122096646 exceeds size of device (122096381 blocks)
For some reason my hard disk has a block count greater than the size of my device. I've done my background searching on this and tried a command line utility I've never heard of before: Code: # sudo e2fsck /dev/sda e2fsck 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010) The filesystem size (according to the superblock) is 122096646 blocks The physical size of the device is 122096381 blocks Either the superblock or the partition table is likely to be corrupt! Abort<y>? yes
And this is as far as I've got. I'm really hesitant to start fiddling around and experimenting with possible fixes because the backup data on this drive holds a decade's worth of work for me and is extremely valuable (hence why I have a spare drive for backups). I really didn't think that the Ubuntu upgrade process would mess with this drive, seeing as the Ubuntu install was contained on an entirely different drive. Any safest way for me to recover this data? Data preservation is the #1 priority for me here. I need to copy all of this data over to my primary drive where Ubuntu is installed. After that, I can reformat this "broken" backup drive.
I had this corrupted external hdd and so I formatted the main partition on it on windows but messed up in the formatting and ended up having to format the entire thing. I got some weird message about it not being initialized (no not mounted) so I was in compmgmt.msc in windows and right clicked it in device manager and it asked for master boot or GUID I selected the latter and formatted. Worked fine and all for a bit but now it doesn't show up as a drive. I noticed when using compmgmt.msc it showed up that it had installed driver software and was being recognized but in the partition editing area there was nothing on this drive, reinstalling driver software doesn't seem to help. Also GParted wont load up when I have it plugged in and Disk Utility doesn't show it. I am requesting help to fix this problem within Ubuntu 10.10 somehow so I can use it properly.
is there a way to write/unpack .qcow2 hard disk image directly to real hard drive in Linux?(I know it's possible to unpack .qcow2 to .raw and then dd to drive, but I'd like to skip .raw since its large)
Been happily going along with Lucid Lynx, locked in, no problems. Slowly sorting through many files on an external 500 GB USB drive, moving into useful sub-folders. Today, I cannot write to any folders on that drive -- read only. ?!?! I run nautilus as root, still no joy. (Using nautilus GUI to browse files to move to other folders.. how can I change these settings to allow me to be able to write to this drive again?
i borrowed an external hard drive from my friend to back up a load of stuff on my windows partition before reinstalling it. I am doing this through ubuntu. I am trying to zip up folders like My Documents etc and chuck them on the external hard drive but it always comes up with errors to do with read/write permissions. In the permissions tab on the folder properties of the ext hard drive it says I am owner but i have no file access (only folder access is create and delete files). When i try to give myself read/write permission it just goes straight back to nothing when i look at it again.
I am making backups and I need to make a cron job that mounts a 2nd local hard drive.
It is not listed in my fstab file and I mount it manually in nautilus (having to type a password). It is designated as /dev/sdb1 and /media/repo when it is mounted. Can I get cron to mount it and then add the password or do I have to add it to fstab?
I've been using Ubuntu 10.x for several months without any major problems. Everything was fine until this week.
In the past few days there's been a strange new problem. When I turn my computer on, it works fine for 10 minutes, and then the hard drive suddenly starts spinning and won't stop. While this happens the computer is virtually unusable. Mouse moves slow and jerky; apps don't respond; and eventually the windows close by themselves, the whole screen goes blank, and the system reboots. The whole process takes a long time, sometimes 30 minutes.
The only change I made just before this problem started was upgrading Firefox Beta 4 version 10 to the latest version 11. So, I deleted it, and went back to the latest stable version 3.6.x. That seemed to fix the problem for a day or so. But then it started happening again. I deleted all signs of Firefox; it still happens. So it's not a browser issue.
I am stumped. Today I started my computer and just let it sit there without opening any programs at all except the system monitor. It ran fine for the usual 10-15 minutes, nothing changed out of the ordinary in terms of computer resources used in the system monitor, and then suddenly the drive started spinning wildly again .....
Right now my computer's been on for 10 minutes and I am typing this message .... but who knows what will happen right now.
I have just freshly installed Karmic on hardware that was previously running Intrepid without any problems. I have not installed anything beyond a few bog-standard applications. I am now running into regular system lock-ups because the / partition is becoming read-only. Once this happens I am unable to start any application or to shut down, because there is no write access. If I happen to have a terminal open, then it is apparent that the disk has become read-only because I can not remove, create or modify any file. If I do not have a terminal open, then I can not open one. Obviously there is nothing written to any log.
after installing Ubuntu on one WD 500 GB hard disk and after making mistake and pasting wrong code into Terminal:my OTHER WD 500 GB hard disk that was also in the system (I guess it was "hd1") - died.The problem must be, I guess, I typed wrong code: "hd1,1" instead of "hd0,0".)500 GB (NTFS) of data was on that other (non-Ubuntu) hard disk, and now I can not access it anymore. While booting, system gives "Hard Disk Error" warning and stops.One again: I installed Ubuntu od one hard disk and at the end of instalation I pasted wrong code for GRUB, giving address of another hard disk. Now that other hard disk has error and will not work
whether all 2TB external hard disks will run on ubuntu 10.04 (lucid)? I was under the impression that Seagate and Western Digital would, but the store where I went to buy it told me they won't. I really need to buy an external hard disk as I'm running out of the space
I have a sata 320 gb with mandriva linux 2009.1 on it.And it is what curently atached to my cpu. It is shown as 'sda' in the partition table.I also have another 40gb hard disk with windows xp installed on it.It is shown as 'hda' in the partition table . Now what i want to do is attach this 40gb hard disk to my pc and configure grub on my 320gb hard disk('sda') so as to boot windows xp(which is residing on the second hard disk,'hda')Can anyone tell me if what im doing is feasible or not? If it is feasible,can anyone suggest me how to get it working. I know i just need to add 2-3 lines to my grub.conf, but dont know what exactly i need to write.
