Formated USB Drive and still get Ubuntu MATE Read Only

happydog500 · 11-28-2016, 02:04 PM

I had a USB thumb drive with Ubuntu MATE on it. I formated the drive to wipe it out to use it as a storage once again.

I can't put anything on it because it's "read only." I noticed when I plug it in, I still have it identified as "Ubuntu MATE".

Why does it still say "Ubuntu MATE?" What can I do to change it?

Thank you,
Chris.

jefro · 11-28-2016, 03:19 PM

Not sure what you have. If the drive is read only then that is a different issue.

If you just want to change label then something like gparted may be most easy. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RenameUSBDrive

happydog500 · 11-28-2016, 03:42 PM

Used Gparted to change the name, thank you.

Still Read Only. I can add if I access it as "Root." If I right click, "permissions" it lists as "Read and Write."

Thanks for getting the name changed. At least if I can't use it, it has the right name.

Chris.

jefro · 11-28-2016, 05:33 PM

If you changed the label then you can use the drive.

happydog500 · 11-28-2016, 06:50 PM

Went through pages and pages on the Internet, some with two pages of commands that don't work. I was at the store and the "tech" guy told me once you put Linux on a thumb drive, you can never use the drive again (Not true, are you kidding?).

I came home, booted up Windows and put the drive in, right clicked, "format" with check box in "restore to defaults" and it works.

I guess I can add "formating a USB drive quicker" to reasons why we still need Windows.

Thanks for the replies,
Chris.

jefro · 11-28-2016, 07:28 PM

Glad you got it fixed is the main thing.

As for the original issue I can't say. I assume it was a permission issue or mount issue.

erik2282 · 11-29-2016, 10:22 AM

or all the partitions were not erased in the initial re-format.

BW-userx · 11-30-2016, 09:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by happydog500

I had a USB thumb drive with Ubuntu MATE on it. I formated the drive to wipe it out to use it as a storage once again.

I can't put anything on it because it's "read only." I noticed when I plug it in, I still have it identified as "Ubuntu MATE".

Why does it still say "Ubuntu MATE?" What can I do to change it?

Thank you,
Chris.

remove write protect usb stick

hdparm -r0 /dev/sdx

toothandnail · 12-01-2016, 07:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by happydog500

I came home, booted up Windows and put the drive in, right clicked, "format" with check box in "restore to defaults" and it works.

I guess I can add "formating a USB drive quicker" to reasons why we still need Windows.

Thanks for the replies,
Chris.

Not really...

If you put Ubuntu Mate on the flash drive, you will have written a read-only iso image to it. The easiest (and quickest) way to get the drive back to read-write is to use something like gparted, log to the flash drive, delete the partition, the recreate it with whatever files system you want on it. No need to use Windows...

Paul.

happydog500 · 12-01-2016, 07:17 PM

Can't believe it. Now that I got that one working, my new one doesn't work. I have lots of data I need on it, but nothing happens when I plug it in now.

Chris.

toothandnail · 12-01-2016, 07:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by happydog500

Can't believe it. Now that I got that one working, my new one doesn't work. I have lots of data I need on it, but nothing happens when I plug it in now.

Ouch. First thing to do would be to check if the machine is seeing it at all. When you plug it in, open a terminal and enter "dmesg" (without the quotes). At the tail end of the data, you should see some indication of what is happening with the flash drive. For instance, if I plug in a flash drive and use dmesg, this is the sort of output I would expect:

Code:

[10963.150471] usb 1-1.1: new high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci-pci
[10963.272131] usb-storage 1-1.1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[10963.272309] scsi host6: usb-storage 1-1.1:1.0
[10963.272468] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[10963.275310] usbcore: registered new interface driver uas
[10964.299638] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access     UFD      USB Flash Drive  PMAP PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[10964.885703] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 31277056 512-byte logical blocks: (16.0 GB/14.9 GiB)
[10964.886950] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[10964.886954] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
[10964.888381] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
[10964.888404] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[10964.894886]  sdb: sdb1
[10964.898952] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk

That should at least give you some indication of whether it is being seen at all, and may also indicate the type of error.

Paul.

happydog500 · 12-01-2016, 07:58 PM

I plugged it in now and it worked. I had video problems and was told to shut down, unplug the computer. After that, it now works.

Here is the end results from the command;

Code:

[ 3895.011683] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[ 3895.011692] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
[ 3895.012307] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] No Caching mode page found
[ 3895.012314] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 3895.019837]  sdd: sdd1
[ 3895.023713] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 3900.318779] FAT-fs (sdd1): Volume was not properly unmounted. Some data may be corrupt. Please run fsck.

Chris.