[SOLVED] How do I make my removable drive writable?

george-lappies · 07-04-2011, 04:43 AM

Hi all

I recently got an external removable drive. It has an NTFS file system (I use it for backups on windows machines). I can write to an internal HDD drive with a NTFS file system but I only have read access on this removable drive as normal user and as root...

How can I fix this so that root has write access as well please?

Code:

root@darkstar:~# cd /media/E2F83E19F83DED03/
root@darkstar:/media/E2F83E19F83DED03# ls
$RECYCLE.BIN/                 TOSHIBA/          autorun.inf
System\ Volume\ Information/  Windows_Backups/  start.cmd
root@darkstar:/media/E2F83E19F83DED03# mkdir Linux_Backups
mkdir: cannot create directory `Linux_Backups': Operation not permitted
root@darkstar:/media/E2F83E19F83DED03# cat < /etc/fstab 
/dev/sda7        swap             swap        defaults         0   0
/dev/sda5        /                ext4        defaults         1   1
/dev/sda6        /home            ext4        defaults         1   2
/dev/sda3        /win7            ntfs-3g     fmask=133,dmask=022 1   0
#/dev/cdrom      /mnt/cdrom       auto        noauto,owner,ro  0   0
/dev/fd0         /mnt/floppy      auto        noauto,owner     0   0
devpts           /dev/pts         devpts      gid=5,mode=620   0   0
proc             /proc            proc        defaults         0   0
tmpfs            /dev/shm         tmpfs       defaults         0   0
root@darkstar:/media/E2F83E19F83DED03#

TobiSGD · 07-04-2011, 04:52 AM

Normally /etc/fstab doesn't contain removable media. Please post the output of

Code:

mount

with the drive mounted.

george-lappies · 07-04-2011, 04:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD

Normally /etc/fstab doesn't contain removable media. Please post the output of

Code:

mount

with the drive mounted.

Sure, here it is:

Code:

root@darkstar:~# mount
/dev/root on / type ext4 (rw,commit=0)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
/dev/sda6 on /home type ext4 (rw,commit=0)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/sda3 on /win7 type fuseblk (rw,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/george/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=george)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/E2F83E19F83DED03 type ntfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=0077,fmask=0177)
root@darkstar:~#

TobiSGD · 07-04-2011, 04:58 AM

The problem is that your external drive is mounted with the ntfs-driver, which by default doesn't support write access. Mount it with the ntfs-3g-driver and you should be fine.

george-lappies · 07-04-2011, 04:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD

The problem is that your external drive is mounted with the ntfs-driver, which by default doesn't support write access. Mount it with the ntfs-3g-driver and you should be fine.

Thanks TobiSGD, this worked:

Code:

root@darkstar:~# umount /dev/sdb1
root@darkstar:~# mkdir /media/external
root@darkstar:~# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /media/external  
root@darkstar:~# cd /media/external/
root@darkstar:/media/external# ls
$RECYCLE.BIN/                 TOSHIBA/          autorun.inf*
System\ Volume\ Information/  Windows_Backups/  start.cmd*
root@darkstar:/media/external# mkdir Linux_Backups
root@darkstar:/media/external#

Is there a way to make it only mount this drive with these parameters when I plug it in even after a usb stick is already plugged in?

TobiSGD · 07-04-2011, 05:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by george-lappies

Thanks TobiSGD, how would I go about doing that though?

Code:

mkdir /mnt/external
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /mnt/external

will mount it to /mnt/external using the ntfs-3g-driver.

george-lappies · 07-04-2011, 05:56 AM

Just backed up a lot of stuff with rsync! wish windows had something like that

TobiSGD · 07-04-2011, 05:58 AM

It has. Have a look here and look at cwRsync.

george-lappies · 07-04-2011, 06:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD

It has. Have a look here and look at cwRsync.

aah, very cool. Thanks once more TobiSGD

syg00 · 07-04-2011, 06:19 AM

Yeah, me too (george got a free rating by accident ....

)

dugan · 07-04-2011, 08:44 AM

Recently added to the LQWiki FAQ:

How can I autmount external NTFS drives with read-write permissions?