Hi, I'm maybe slightly more knowledgeable than a newbie. I'm using SUSE 10.2, which I set up recently, and had the same thing in SUSE 10.1.

Here's the problem. I have a huge external hard drive on which I store movies, music etc. I plug it into the computer and it works fine. The problem arises when I try to move files around, and it says I don't have permission. I check in the properties to see what the permissions are like and see that they are set to access only for everybody.

I figure that root should be able to access that and change those permissions. I log into root try to change them, but it just says this drive is a read-only drive. But that is not true because I used to write/ delete all the time when I was using windows.

So I think that the problem is how the system recognizes the nature of the drive maybe. I have no idea.

Thank you for reading.

It sounds like it's the way you external drive is being mounted. Can you post the output of "cat /etc/fstab" and "mount" (without the quotes), and we'll go from there.

Can you post the output of "cat /etc/fstab" and "mount"

I don't know what to do with that...

You need to open up a terminal (or konsole), and type: and also and then copy the output from those two commands into a reply here.

Done, here it is: (this includes my removable hard disk as well as my removable flash drive, and the problem is with the both of them, also c is for some strange reason refers to the removable hard disk)

yyarin:~ # mount
/dev/hda2 on / type ext3 (rw,acl,user_xattr)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=0620,gid=5)
/dev/hda3 on /home type ext3 (rw,acl,user_xattr)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
yyarin:~ # cat /etc/fstab
/dev/hda2 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/hda3 /home ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/sda1 /windows/C ntfs ro,users,gid=users,umask=0002,nls=utf8 0 0
/dev/hda1 swap swap defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs noauto 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
yyarin:~ # mount
/dev/hda2 on / type ext3 (rw,acl,user_xattr)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=0620,gid=5)
/dev/hda3 on /home type ext3 (rw,acl,user_xattr)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
/dev/sda1 on /windows/C type ntfs (ro,noexec,nosuid,nodev,gid=100,umask=0002,nls=utf8)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/disk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,shortname=winnt,uid=1000)

securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
/dev/sda1 on /windows/C type ntfs (ro,noexec,nosuid,nodev,gid=100,umask=0002,nls=utf8)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/disk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,shortname=winnt,uid=1000)

I am assuming that /dev/sda1 is your external drive, and therefor it is formatted to NTFS. Although i cant think why you would have a problem copying files off it, writing to NTFS in linux does not have very much support, and you may not have that ability installed or have the correct kernel modules.

U mite need to update your kernel to one with NTFS write support, or better yet, back up the external drive, format to FAT32 or ext2, then put it all back on. Just remember you need to install the app that lets yopu rite to ext2 in windows then

I'm guessing the directory you're having trouble with is /windows/C? The reason you can't write (including moving files) to /dev/sda1 (which is accessible as /windows/C), is because that's an NTFS formatted partition. What that means is that only windows can reliably write to that partition. There are some programs out there which allow linux to write to NTFS, and I believe kernel support is almost there too, but I still don't trust it. In essence, you won't be able to write to that partition (no matter which user you are) from within Linux; only windows will allow you to do that.

There is lots of information on why you can't totally work with NTFS drives from within Linux, but suffice it to say, since Microsoft created NTFS, they haven't released all the information needed to correctly create a driver which will read and write to NTFS.

Just to clarify a little, the line in the output you copied and pasted which is of interest is this:specifically the section I've highlighted in bold. What that says is that /dev/sda1 (which is the partition of your external disk) is mounted at /windows/C, with a filesystem type of ntfs, with further options of readonly (ro). Therefore, you cannot write to it as it is currently mounted.

The part umask=0002 tells the operating system that only "everybody" can access it (represented by the 2), where as a user or a group cannot (the zeroes). For further information, I suggest you take a look at this short page, which explains the "user, group and everybody" system: http://www.ahinc.com/linux101/permission.htm

edit: Beaten to it!

edit 2: I see no reason why /dev/sdb1 (/media/disk) shouldn't work though, as fat filesystems are fully supported in linux (read and write).