I cannot write anything in my external hard drive

[gvm12]

I have an external usb hard drive that I use to back my files, but a couple of days ago when I tried to back up a movie, I wasn't able to write it in this external hard drive. In the permissions menu, I see that the owner is the root and the permissions to others is set up to access files only and not to read and write. I never changed this and I never used the root account to change these permissions. What happened here and what can I do to be able to write in it? I really need to be able to back up my files. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[OU812]

Hello. First, I think we need to know what type of file system it has - ntfs, vfat, or maybe even a linux file format. If you are not sure, look at the file /etc/fstab. In the event that it is an ntfs format, you can use system tools>ntfs configuration tool to set up the drives for rw support. Good luck.

john

[Lensman]

Try Alt-F2 and then type gksu nautilus. Navigate to your 'Media' file and you should find and be able to write to your drive. Worth a shot, anyway.

[Husse]

gksu nautilus

NO NO! Don't use the gui as root! You may end up with a destroyed system.
I think this is ntfs or fat and the partition is mentioned in fstab.
Back up your fstab sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak
Edit your fstab sudo gedit /etc/fstab
If the offending partition is ntfs or fat - remove it completely.
If the partiton is in a Linux fileformat add user to the fourth section of its line in fstab. Section divider is space, the fourth section may be divided by commas. Something like this:

Code: Select all

/dev/sda4 /media/sda4     ext3    defaults,user        0       2

Be absolutely certain you've done it to the right disk!
Check man fstab in a terminal for more details
Reboot with the usb disk connected.
It may even help just to reboot with it connected - something happens sometimes when you connect it....