problem copying files to a 40gb removable hd
 

I have this 40 gb removable hard drive and I can not transfer my files to it when i click on the file to drag it to the removable hd. I let drop the file but it will not start to coppy it just drags itself back to where it came from, however I dont have this problem when I copy files to a 2gb usb drive. Can you please help me.

Hey, welcome to LQ!
now, please give more info on specs of hd, the computer, etc
also, what distro are you using?
any info helps.

i am using ubuntu 8.10 the removable hd has an ntfs file system and it is a made by dynex that is all i know

have you tried copying the files using the cp command?

no what is the command

you need to chown the 40g hd first, then copy/paste drag n drop
open a terminal and become root
"sudo su" + your passwd
then own the hd
"chown -R username /media/disk"
where username is your name and "/media/disk" is the mountpint
to find out where it's mounted use "mount"
exampl, my username is "bz" and my 40g HD is mounted on /media/disk
"chown -R bz /media/disk"

after that you should have all permissions on the drive
now, try to drag n drop

if no drag n drop
use CP command
example, my Music folder is in the 40g hd and I wanna put it on my Desktop in Ubuntu
" cp -a /media/disk/Music /home/bz/Desktop "
or if I already have a Music folder on Desktop, so I just wanna copy the
CONTENTS of the music folder on the 40g hd to my Desktop Music folder
" cp -a /media/disk/Music/* /home/bz/Desktop/Music "
dig it?

What is the filesystem on the 2gb usb drive ?
Your kernel need to have NTFS write support, in order to write to a NTFS filesystem.

linus 72-- i did the chown thing and it ran a ton of stuff in the terminal then, but it still wouldnt let me drag and drop the files. Also I think you thought my problem was copying items from the 40gb hd to the desktop, and that works fine. My problem was copying items from my desktop to the 40gb hd. That still didnt work through drag and drop. SO i tried the cp command, and it said "cannot create directory" so i dont know what is wrong there either. So i still need help if you know what is wrong.


repo-- the file system on the usb fat32, and if my kernel does not have NTFS write support how to i get it


thanks both of you

Take a look at
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=217009