I'm guessing this is the right forum for someone with SD Card problems.

Was using an SD card with Fedora v16-64 as a backup for txt and wordprocessed files and I want to change the permissions for several of these. I've found to my surprise that suddently " chmod ", even as su, doesn't work. The card shows up as "busy" and repeated attempts to change the permissions have failed. I can't even erase/delete the files but strangely enough, if I open the file, make changes and then save it under a different name, it works.

Is it me? Is this unique to Fedora? Has anyone experienced this beside me?

tyc

If any process -- a shell using 'cd somewhere', a file manager with a selected folder, an application that has opened files and is still running (even if files are now closed) -- is currently accessing a file system, it is "busy" as far as most administrative actions are concerned. If you stop all of those processes, the file system itself will continue to keep things active for a short while in case new activities start up. The file systems also need to finish writing buffers to disk after activities are completed.

I hope that this helps,
~~~ 0;-Dan

1 members found this post helpful.

Not at all. Of no help what-so-ever.

tyc

What filesystem is on the SD card? Since a FAT32 filesystem does not know anything about linux permissions chmod will fail. The output of the mount command without options will show how the sd card is mounted.

Can you erase/delete files as root?

Sorry if I added confusion or used too much technobabble and geekish.

If you 'cd ' to some folder on the file system, it will be busy.

If you have a file browser window open with a folder or file selected on the file system,
it will be busy.

If you run an app (word processing, photo viewer, etc) and access content on the file system
it will be busy.

Even after you close all of that stuff down, the file system will remain busy for a short time
while the OS does housekeeping.

Sometimes, something will grab a file system and keep it busy even when you think all has ended.
In these cases fuser might help you identify what is keeping things running.

Good luck,
~~~ 0;-Dan

Just got back ...

Will have to check into how the SD card is mounted. Right now I don't know.

As for the ability to erase ("rm") the files as root, I've tried that, without success, which did surprise me very much. Interestingly enough when the files were copied to a Memoriz stick I was able to do this - one file at a time. As for the SD card in question, the same result was encountered with "chmod" and "chown"; i.e., no change. It's much as if I were dealing with an old floppy diskette and I had a tape over the notch so I couldn't write to or erase the diskette only right now I don't know how to "untape" the "notch."

Thanks for the come back. If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears. Don't want to have to throw away the SD card if it can be helped.

tyc

Gees Dan,

I know you're clearly trying to be of help but you've got to come out of that "ivory tower" when it comes to things like this.

As for Ayn Rand ... be a fan of hers for decades.

Thanks for trying.

tyc

One more from the "ivory tower"

Unconscious Incompetence -- You don't know what you don't know.
Conscious Incompetence -- You know what you don't know.
Conscious Competence -- You know what you know.
Unconscious Incompetence -- You don't know what you know.

Once cannot teach or inform unless they know what they know and don't know.
More importantly, it is very valuable to know what your audience knows and doesn't know.
(Most folks learn by adding new information and skill to something they already know.)

Clearly, I missed on both counts and regret that I wasted your time.
If you continue to have this problem -- something I fought and mostly beat -- I'd love
to try to help you resolve it.

Regards,
~~~ 0;-Dan